
Class JES-^^^ia/ 

COFffilGHT DEPOSm 



THE ARMY WITH BANNERS 



THE 
ARMY WITH BANNERS 

A Divine Comedy of This Very Day^ in Five 
Acts, Scene Individable, Setting Forth the 
Story of a Morning in the Early Millennium 

BY 

CHARLES RANN KENNEDY 



Who is she that looketh forth as the 
morning, fair as the moon, clear as 
the sun and terrible as an army with 
banners ? 

Song of Solomon 




NEW YORK 

B. W. HUEBSCH 

MCMXIX 



COPYRIGHT, 1919 
BY CHARLES RANN KENNEDY 

All stage, recitation, publication, translation and 

other rights reser'ved. Application should 

be made to B, . W. Huebsch 



^^^ 



!\' 



APB 24 1920 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



©CI.A565663 



TO 

M. F. B. 

'you are the flower and 

loveliness of all the 

blossoming mays!" 



" The Army with Banners " was written during the 
summer of 1917 ; and produced at the Theatre du Vieux 
Colombier, New York City, on April 9th, 19 18. 



THE SCENE 

The Scene is the Hall of a Gothic Building of the 
thirteenth century, formerly a nunnery, now con- 
verted into an Orphanage. Below, it is bathed 
In clear but sunless daylight: the vaultings 
above, losing themselves In palpitating shadows. 

On the left is a large MuUIoned Window, looking East. 

At the back are two pointed Doors. The westerly one 
leads to the Scullery and Kitchens : the easterly, 
to the Refectory. Between them, a broad stone 
Stairway ascends to a Gallery, dominated by 
a lofty Stained Glass Window, representing the 
Angel of the Resurrection in sombre amber 
lights. Exits may be made from both sides of 
the gallery. 

On the right is a gaunt Fireplace, the fire being lighted. 

A Lectern, guarded by two tall Candelabra and pro- 
vided with a Bible, stands by the eastern pillar 
of the stairway. Of other furniture, there is 
little. A carved Table in the window : upon It, 
an Alms-dish and a Bowl of Roses. A Chair 
near the middle of the Hall. Above the fire- 
place, a High-backed Bench: below it, a 
Faldstool. All of these are In strict thirteenth 
century. Only one really modern note may be 
found in the place. It stands by the western 
pillar of the stairway, opposite the Bible. It is 
a Talking Machine. 



PERSONS OF THE PLAY 

Mary Bliss, A Poor Fool 

Julia Manners, A Lady of Good Motives 

Job Limp, A Man of the Past 

Timothy Hodge, A Man of the Present 

Tommy Trail, A Man of the Minute 

PoMEROY Wragg, A Man of Almost any Time 

Dafty, a Man Out of Time Altogether 

THE PLACE 

An Orphanage 

THE TIME 

^At the Coming of the Lord 



THE 
ARMY WITH BANNERS 

THE FIRST ACT 

As the Curtain rises, the Hall is empty. The laugh- 
ter of children sounds from a distant part of the Or- 
phanage. A clock strikes nine, and silence ensues. 

The two doors fly open simultaneously. Timothy 
Hodge appears from the Refectory: from the Scullery, 
Job Limp. Timothy is corpulent and pasty, with red 
hair and an acquiescent smirk: Job, scrag with a hitter 
eye. They are dressed accordingly; and belong in 
their respective ways to the loftier classes. 

They hurry forward, and bump in the middle of the 
Hall. 

Limp. Extravagance ! Did you find anything? 

Hodge. The entire Orphanage got up like one of 
them Catholic carnivals. Advent Sunday, they 
said. And the kids all coming in from Mass. 
[I] 



Mass, mind you ! And then we call ourselves 
a decent protestant country. 

Limp. It's this everlasting pampering. 

Hodge. It's popery. 

Limp. The woman's a fool. And he^s the devil him- 
self. 

He gestures savagely towards the Scul- 
lery, 

Did you see her? 

Hodge. What! Let her nab hold of me alone, be- 
fore you others. . . . Not much! You know 
what she Is. 

This provokes Limp to a bitter snort. 

Course, I believe In the higher education, my- 
self. Didn't I build the Baptist Young Peo- 
ple's Self-Improvement Institution? Only, It 
don't all seem proper to me, somehow. Did 
you see himf 

Limp. Him! He's off gallivanting with the little 
girls. But his hoofprlnt's everywhere. I 
thought that cryptic paranoiac was engaged to 
shovel coal ! 

[2] 



Hodge (quoting). Stoke the furnace, and do what's 
wanted down below. I was by, when she made 
the contract. And too well paid at that. 

Limp. Well, he's cook now ! That, added to the rest 
of the tomfooleries. Made them cakes! 

Hodge. Seems sinful, don't it? And all this want 
in the world. Good cakes, as might have been 
given to the poor. The deserving poor. 

Limp grunts aggrievedly. 

It's not even as if they paid their whack. After 
all, it's a charity, and ought to be run as such. 
But she never would listen to me. 

Limp. There was one, a mountainous macaroon with 
a slab of ice on it ... I can see it now. Ugh ! 
And me with a liver. 

Hodge. Awful ! 

Limp. Awful! It's torments of the damned! . . . 
Did I ever tell you about my liver, Timothy? 

Hodge. You did. Job. Reglar, the last seven years. 

And he eyes him firmly. 

Funny thing, never had a liver. But we all 
have our troubles. Mine's fatty degeneration 
of the heart. Doctor says I'll go, that way, 
sometime. 

[3] 



This does not really comfort Job. He 
moves irritably to the fireplace. 

Limp. I wish you wouldn't be forever contemplating 
tombs. 

Hodge. We got to die, Job. 

Limp {sneering) . There is no death! Ask her. 

Hodge. / ain't responsible for her profanity. You'd 
better blame that window. That's what's ad- 
dled her brain. Twisting Scripture ! 

He turns reproachfully towards the win- 
dow. 

Don't look like no Angel of the Resurrection, 
neither. Looks to me, more like one of them 
new-fangled cover designs. 

He straddles the chair and faces LiMP, 
who has his hack to the fire. 

It's all this thirteenth century falderal. Mo- 
ment Nicholas Biggs left her the money, I knew 
what it would be. I did my best. But no ! 
Orphanage! So she buys this ramshackle old 
has-been. If she'd Invested in my Lucifer 
Power and Light Company, as you others did, 
by today she'd have been a Rockyfeller. I 
[4] 



don't recall the exact present market-price of 
Gothic nunneries; but you know what Lucifers 
been doing since the war. Besides the patriot- 
ism ! Investing with me would have served 
the two most improving principles of the hour: 
Business As Usual and Doing Your Bit. 

He bites his knuckle meditatively. The 
action points to an acquisitive infancy. 

Limp. If she'd only had the taste to make it a mu- 
seum! 

Hodge. Or else the gumption to run it as a ruin. 
Simply wanted a turnstile and a man at fifteen 
per. No! Education! Let us resume from 
where we halted in thirteen something! 
Course, education's — needed. My young 
Baptists now, I suppose you'd call them edu- 
cated. They don't dance, they don't drink, 
they don't go to theaytres, don't do anything! 
— What more do you want? And I make out 
of it! . . . 

He discovers a nice wart behind his ear. 

If the place paid! If it was only one of them 
high-priced schools, where the little girls run 
around in automobiles and the little boys play 
golf all day ! But orphans ! Penniless or- 
phans! Not even orphans, some of them! 
[5] 



There are children In this establishment today, 
who have healthy well-fed parents walking the 
earth. I taxed her with that once. Know 
what she said? They'll all he walking, pres- 
ently. That was the very first time I noticed, 
she was going peculiar in her head. 

Limp. Peculiar! It's dementia praecox! 

Hodge. Then, the things she's teaching them! My 
young people would be shocked. Forms and 
ceremonies, and play-acting and sex hygiene, 
you'd think they was so many grown-up married 
men and women, the unpleasant things they 
know. Have you seen their Greek dancing? — 
I have ! And they do it openly, brazenly ! I 
don't know how you think; but I know how I 
was brought up to consider little girls' legs. 
And of course, since he's come . . . ! 
I may be only a plain God-fearing man of busi- 
ness; but I hope I represent the spirit of an 
enlightened protestant age. And I tell you, It 
hurts my Inside, to see so much good money, 
sort of — getting away. 

And he is back at his mouth once more. 

Limp. It Isn't the thirteenth century. It's this mod- 
ern levelling. Socialism ! And humouring 

indigent brats with macaroons. 
[61 



Hodge. Fm against socialism, myself. It destroys 
incentive. 

Limp. Mediaevalism's all right in its proper place: 
the past. Something to escape to, from the 
loathsome present. But why resuscitate it for 
a creche of undiscerning sucklings? Can they 
grasp symbolism, grotesquerie, the gargoyle? 
Can they grasp the creative technicalities of such 
works as Dante's /w/^rwo.^ No! lean. I've 
a liver. 

And he indicates that organ, feelingly. 

Hodge. You remind me of corpses. Some people 
would travel long weary miles for a corpse. I 
don't mean merely clergymen and undertakers. 
Grandmothers, aunts, next-door neighbours, 
people of that sort. My mother loved them. 
Course, corpses have their uses, same as — 
ourselves; but as you say, why resuscitate? 
End of the world and all that, yes! Only, I 
mean — actually. Nice lot of dummies we'd 
look, wouldn't we, if all the graveyards was sud- 
denly to . . . 

Limp (explosively) . Look here, Timothy! Do you 
propose chirruping your charnel fancies the 
whole morning? 

Hodge regards him with melancholy dis' 
pleasure. 

[7] 



Hodge. Ain't you got no higher nature, Job? Don't 
be liverish. Have a heart. 

He claps his hand rememheringly to his 
own. His intended diagnosis^ how- 
ever, is prevented hy the tumultuous 
appearance of POMEROY Wragg 
from the Refectory. He is blown in, 
as it were, upon gales of childish glee. 

PoMEROY is a small old man, spick and 
span, now bespattered with confec- 
tionery. He is in funeral garb, 
wears national emblems in his lapel, 
and seems perturbed. 

Wragg. The poisonous young reptiles ! This comes 
of Magna Charta ! This comes of granting 
popular liberties ! Give them a taste of gen- 
uine feudalism, say I ! Racks, tortures, thumb- 
screws ! Look at me ! 

Hodge. Well, you do look a mug. What have they 
done? 

Wragg. Done ! Plastered me up with cake and ba- 
nana skin, and all the filthy leavings of their 
gluttonous young mouths. 

Limp. The little swine! Why? 

Wragg. Because, like a babbling bivalve, I cast my 

[8] 



pearls before them. You know my platform. 
You know the priceless gems I'm bawling night 
and day into the flapping ears of every ass I 
meet. I gave them all. And they plastered 
me with offal. 

Hodge. Signifying disagreement? 

Wragg. Disagreement ! Worse ! 

Limp. Contempt? 

Wragg. Worse! They took me for a funny man, 
and hugged me ! 

The others reply incredulously : 

Both. No! . . . 

Wragg. I tell you, they did ! I can feel their sticky 
kisses all over me. Then they romped me up 
and down, and made me this disgusting mess. 
Dressed for the Memorial Service, too! If 
ever this leaks out, I'm lost. Let people once 
get it into their heads, I'm funny; and I shall 
perish from the earth. Look at me! 

He gyrates. Upon his back is pinned 
a paper, hearing the legend in a large 
scrawling hand: MISTER WRAGG 
IS A WAGG. 

[9] 



Hodge {laughing). Well, that's funny! 

Wragg {turning furiously) . What's funny? 

Limp {testily). On your back, man! On your back! 

He unpins and gives him the paper. 

Wragg. That's that little devil In yellow, who wanted 
me to play pickaback! {spitefully) ; I suppose 
she thinks that's poetry ! 

Hodge. Here, save them pins. I wouldn't be the 
man I am today, if I hadn't saved pins. 

Limp hands them to him. He sticks 
them lovingly in his waistcoat edge. 

Wragg. This comes of helping friends! Pulling us 
out of our comfortable Sunday beds to play 
peepbo! Has anyone seen Julia? She 
planned this conspiracy. 

Hodge. We ain't seen Julia, nor her. And we been 
poking about since eight. Job in the kitchen: 
me In the refectory. 

Limp. Picked up a few choice titbits, too ! / did. I 
don't know what Timothy . . . 

But Timothy muses upon some prob- 
lem of his own. 

[lO] 



Hodge. Them poor-boxes in the refectory, as the kids 
put^their pennies in, ain't no good. You can 
poke them out with your knife, as easy as easy. 

Wragg. Well, we must await Julia's pleasure; that's 
all! 

Limp. Yes, and supposing she turns up 1 Nice catas- 
trophe we^d bring about, and no Julia behind 
us! 

Wragg. We must talk her down 1 
Limp. Mary Bliss 1 

He glooms ironically, as Pluto might 
upon the bootless dreams of Sisyphos. 

Hodge. Here's Julia. 

Julia Manners trips briskly down the 
stairway. She is a widow of means, 
dressed elegantly but severely in plum- 
coloured silk. 

Julia. Everybody here? Charming! Have they 
sent the talking machine? — We'll want that. 
Ah ! Opposite the Bible ! Most appropriate ! 

She joins them. They gather around 
her. 

[II] 



IVe been up in her room, alone, rummaging 
through her things. Now, Job, don't get punc- 
tilious : our plot necessitates it. I will say one 
thing for her — she's orderly. You know, that 
crafty kind of orderliness, covering an oblique 
mind. 

Have you obtained anything? 

She happens to glance at HODGE, who 
takes the enquiry personally; 

Hodge. Me? Nothing to speak of. 

Julia. / have! I've discovered everything. It con- 
firms our vilest suspicions. 

Hodge. About her? 

Limp. About him? 

Julia. About both of them. It's perfectly unspeak- 
able : I'll tell you all about it at once. Let's sit 
down and be comfortable. 

They do so. Julia, in the middle of 
the high-hacked bench: LiMP, on her 
left, Wragg takes the faldstool, be- 
low the fire. Hodge, the chair. 

Limp. Looks as if we were going to get somewhere at 
last. 

[12] 



The others ' shush ' him down, 

Julia. I always knew that Mary Bliss was a fool. 
Her educational theories prove that. And it 
was I, remember, first drew attention to her 
queer mental . . . Well, today's revelation 
caps everything! Though really, if I hadn't 
been a born innocent, I should have guessed 
that too! For all the town talks of it! . . . 
Listen ! I've been reading her diary. 

Limp. What! ... 

Julia. Yes, I'm aware it isn't done: you needn't tell 
me that! After all, it's the motive! . . . 
Look here, I can't proceed with my story, if 
you keep on impugning my honour in this 
ungentlemanly way. Timothy understands. 
Don't you, Tim? 

Hodge (complaisantly) . Oh, yes. 

Julia. There, you see ! We can't stand selfishly by, 
and watch that creature pass to perdition, with- 
out some help. We must save her from her- 
self: we're her friends. Well, aren't we? 

OwNES (vociferously) . Oh, yes ! Yes! 

Julia. Then, doesn't that shew? As I say, it's the 
intention. Even God searches our hearts. 
Isn't that a kind of reading diaries? 
[13] 



And, divinely fortified, she drops to the 
confidential; 

My dears, it's practically a confession. Every 
single wickedness set down in barefaced black 
and white. As for him! I had my misgivings 
before; but now I could tell you a pretty thing 
or two ! The trickster has her completely un- 
der his thumb. 

Wragg. Dafty? 

Julia. Dafty. 

Hodge. What's his real name, I wonder? 

Julia. Timothy, what does it matter? Who cares 
about the real name of a brute that stokes fur- 
naces? Though no doubt he has diabolically 
deep reasons for concealment! 

Hodge. It's that sleepy look of his ! Sort of — croc- 
odile. 

Julia. Sleepy ! He's as wide awake as . . . 

Limp. Can't imagine what she sees in the scoundrel! 

Julia {pityingly) . My dear Job! Don't you know, 
persons like Dafty only have to dress peculiarly, 
and cultivate a few eccentricities, for every mis- 
[H] 



guided woman in the world to jump at them? 
That's what they do : jump ! The children, 
too. That little yellow thing especially. 

Hodge. Course, it's plain, what he's after ! 

He taps his pocket. Coins are heard 
clinking. 

Julia. Precisely our motive for stepping In. Nich- 
olas Biggs only left her the money in one of his 
cranks, ghastly old fiend! If her friends won't 
look after it, who will? It's our sacred duty I 
We owe It to the dead ! She shall not squander 
it on worthless outsiders ! Worming in 1 

Hodge. It's her Immiortal soul, I'm thinking of I 

Julia. Exactly! We must remember that, too. 
After all, if we do read diaries, we are bring- 
ing her the consolations of religion. Else, why 
did I send the talking machine? 

Limp. Well, why? 

Julia {mysteriously). I'm reserving that. Tim- 
othy, see If the record's there. 

He rises heavily to do so; hut Wragg's 
next utterance diverts him. 



[15] 



Wragg. Queer old stick, Nicholas! Clever as the 
deuce ! Billions, out of manufacturing optical 
instruments ! 

Hodge. Dead wrong! It was monster enterprise, 
bold investment, made him. Till he began 
smashing telescopes. 

Wragg. I never heard that. 

Hodge. There's not many as knows. Kept dark! 
Business ! 

He compresses his lips with the pro- 
found inscrutability of the man of af- 
fairs. Limp soon pricks that bubble; 

Limp. No mystery! Everybody knows it was relig- 
ious mania! Runs through the whole family: 
either her way, or old Nick's ! She flies off into 
erotic mysticism and esoteric orphanages: he, 
after a perfectly brilliant financial career, sud- 
denly declares himself a damned spirit, hacks his 
observatory to smithereens, and goes gibbering 
into limbo under the hallucination that the sky 
is an Enormous Eye. 

Julia. Enormous. . . . How horrible! 

Wragg. Ever see him? 

[i6] 



Limp. Nobody did. But his influence was unfathom- 
able. Wherever any scheming of transcendent 
magnitude was afoot, you might be sure, deep 
down, abysmally, under one pseudonym or an- 
other, old ... 

Hodge. Ssh! Dafty! . . . 

ThiSy he delivers in a stentorian stage 
whisper. 

Dafty enters from the Scullery with a 
log. He is a quaint soul in goggles, 
shambling of gait and bent, a whimsi- 
cal twinkle in his eye; and rather nob- 
bishly clad in buff nankeens with but- 
toned gaiters and a brimstone vest. 

He places the log on the fire, beams af- 
fably upon the company, and re- 
marks; 

Dafty. Weather, we're having! And thunder brew- 
ing! 

They stiffen, making no reply. Noth- 
ing daunted, he tries a crack with 
Wragg; 

Fond of their bit of fun! That Golden One, 
now ! Quite a poet, I must say. And only 
seven ! 

[17] 



Wragg pokes vigorously at the fire. 
Dafty watches amiably, with an air 
of heartening the well-meant bung- 
ling of an amateur. He then 
spreads further radiance , ostensibly 
addressing the Gothic arches above 
him. 

They enjoyed their macaroon. I must have 
that recorded In the diary. 

The others focus Limp and Julia in 
turn, as they register these trifles. 

^And Dafty makes for his den. On his 
journey, he bethinks him of another 
word; and with a glint at HoDGE, pro- 
duces from his vest, a coin. 

Can any of you kind friends break me this ? 

Hodge can. The others will see him 
in the nether gulf first. 

Hodge. I can give you pennies. 

Dafty. Thank you. Pennies will do nicely. 

He regards him slumberously, an air of 
the Nile about him. 

The transaction is made. HODGE bites 
[.8] 



the silver to test it. He then tickles 
the crook of his mouth with his fore- 
finger, making a secretive broker's jib. 
Dafty studies the action heedfully, 
and imitates it. This done, he shuf- 
fles towards the Scullery. 

But Julia can restrain herself no 
longer; 

Julia. You ! Stoker ! 

Dafty. Ma'am? 

And he pops his head round the hack of 
the bench. 

Julia. Have you any earthly inkling of what decent 
godly people mean by morality? 

Dafty {chuckling). Bless your heart, yes, ma'am! 
Means making yourself disagreeable to the in- 
decent devilish ones. Only, don't bother your 
head, ma'am: you get over it! I was moral 
myself once. But I learned a game worth doz- 
ens of it. I'll tell you all about it some day, 
when you and I . . . {winking) ; You know! 
Sweet by and bye ! 

Julia. Thank you, I am not desirous of learning. 

Hodge. I see what's wrong with this fellow. He's 
one of these word-cubists. You know, calls 

[19] 



black white; and twists things inside out. Job, 
you're a scholar : what's the name of that thing 
they do? 

Limp {snapping). Paradox! 

Hodge. Thought so ! You see, it'll be anarchy next, 
and free love, and got no religion. 

Dafty {cunningly). Yes, I have, too! 

Julia. You! Religious! 

Dafty. Yes, ma'am, damnably! Only, don't tell 
anybody. The moment you profess religion, 
you're put down for something serious at once; 
and all your little jokes go for nothing. I'm 
considered quite a funny man, so long as peo- 
ple don't imagine me religious. Only whack 
them over the back with a scourge: they split 
with laughter! — They never dream of apos- 
tolic function. Another thing! — Keeping 
mum staves off the saved. I've had whole 
Sunday Schools jigging around me, just because 
some busybody blurted. And it's useless in- 
forming them, their god's a Zulu's devil; and 
their revivalism stinks to heaven. They never 
see the joke. They yell out halleluiah, and 
take your name in vain, and pump you by the 
hand : till you wish yourself in hell, for a spice 
of solid home-comfort and congeniality. Mind 
[20] 



you, I believe God's love is infinite. There is 
salvation for all — even the saved; if only 
they'll repent, and demolish a few big taber- 
nacles. Why, I knew a Methodist once, who 
had been saved fifteen times ; but the Lord found 
him at last, and now he's quite an honest mem- 
ber of society — a low comedian. 

Meantime f his hearers have risen to 
sublime aloofness. They would not 
hearken to the hellowings of Apol- 
lyon. Now, however, they begin to 
descend rapidly; 

You see, it's all a matter of eyesight. You 
can't get good eyes out of bad spectacles. That 
master optician, my good friend, Roger Bacon, 
in this very thirteenth century, knew that. Then 
again: take telescopes! An instrument can be 
made with power enough to reach beyond the 
stars. But it's no heavenly use to a blind man. 
He only has to learn that it exists, to be misled. 
Better smash it altogether and have done! 
You know those coloured flames and flickers, 
when you press your eyeballs? Well, his poor 
black mind gets lost in them; and he fancies he 
beholds the shining of the Seven Fiery Spirits 
that burn about the Great White Throne. 

Limp (bitingly). What do you know about it? 

[21] 



Dafty (seraphically) . Ah, that's the funniest joke of 
all. I have seen those Spirits. 

Julia. That's enough infidelity, stoker! You can 
go- 

Dafty (ruefully). Wish my jokes could! Seems to 
be no place for really delicate humour nowa- 
days. 

And he seeks the coaly comfort of his 
underworld. 

Alone, at last, they let loose their pent- 
up feelings; 

Julia. And that's the influence, she deems desirable 
for children ! 

Limp. If he'd only be contented with that Stygian pit, 
unto which it has pleased the Unknowable to 
call him ! But he comes up ! He gallivants ! 
He cooks! 

Wragg. He plays the fiddle, while those young Imps 

Hodge. I've seen him caper like an old he-goat, him- 
self! He took off Satan in their pageant! 
Togged up and hollered like an actor ! 

[aa] 



Limp. He makes them fireworks! They tell him all 
their beastly little secrets. He kisses the girls I 

Julia. And sows within their minds the tares of sin 
and irreligion! 

Hodge. Something must be done ! 

Wragg. Something drastic! 

Limp. Something excruciating ! 

Hodge. Something really nasty ! 

Julia. Precisely! That's why we're here. Now, 
listen. 

They bank their fires. They divine she 
has something subterranean to im- 
part. She has. 

We must try to save her first. It wouldn't be 
quite kind to condemn her, if we didn't try to 
save her first. Then, if she's obstinate — as 
she will be ! — there's the diary. As I say, 
we're her friends, and have every right to be- 
have as such. So that's settled. And we can 
begin saving. 

I have everything ready. The talking ma- 
chine, the hymn books, even the collection plate. 
And heHl be here within the hour. 
[23] 



Omnes. Who ? 

Julia. Ah! . . . 

She now springs her trump card. 

Tommy Trail ! 

Omnes. Who! , . . 

Julia. Tommy Trail. 

Wragg. You'll never get him. 

Julia. I have. 

Hodge. You're a miracle ! Tommy demands gold- 
mines! 

Julia. He does. Then there was the bracelet for 
Mother, and Johnny's little diamond pin; but 
I thought if we all chipped in. . . . And it's 
really an investment, rightly considered. Be- 
sides saving her soul ! 

What do you say, Fomeroy? You've been 
speaking on the same platform with him lately. 

Wragg. I say, Tommy Trail is the biggest patriotic 
bonanza, booming today. That man, with a 
flag and a hymn, can do more for recruiting in 
four minutes, than the whole of Pentecost. 

[24] 



Julia. What power ! I do hope his voice . . ^ 

Wragg. That's no matter! When his voice croaks, 
he gets there with gesticulation. I've known 
him gnaw the pulpit before today. 

Julia. What inspiration! 

Wragg. Doctrine^ a bit crude . . . 

Julia. Ah, but then he's so sincere ! 

Limp. So's a homicidal maniac! American, isn't he? 

Wragg. Distinctly: representatively! Emerson was 
one sort. He's another. 

Limp. Well, he won't get anything out of me. I 
hate his methods. 

Julia. My dear Job, he reaches people you and I 
wouldn't touch ! Really horrid low-class 
people, you know ! 

Limp. Julia, his language! . . . 

Julia. How absurd you are ! The man was brought 
up on a football field ! You can't expect a man 
brought up on a football field, to talk like 
Ruskin ! 

Limp. Yes, but his god — his disagreeable god ! . . . 

[25] 



Julia. Now, Job ! You can't go judging everybody 
by his god! Do be charitable! 

Hodge. Look at the theaytres he's closed! The 
good beer he's had wasted! 

Wragg. Look at that last sermon, Render unto 
Casar! Thousands rallied to the standard of 
civilization ! 

Hodge. And the one before, as broke the strike in 
my own industry! That was, Suffer, little 
children. 

Julia. Then his influence in the Happy Home ! I 
know an auctioneer, a church deacon, who for- 
sook his wife. Now, instead of playing cards 
with low companions, he sings hymns to her. 

Hodge. In Tommy, you get all the high-class fun of 
Sarah Bernhardt and Charlie Chaplin knocked 
into one, without the wickedness. He's one of 
the elect all right, is Tommy! Oil of salvation 
regular oozes from him! The very unions 
believe and tremble when he comes ! He 
makes the worker content with his wages ! 
How? Offers the blighter heaven: if he re- 
fuses — gives him hell. 

Limp. Yes, hell and Tommy! 

[26] 



Julia. Job, do remember you are a gentleman! 
. . . Oh, she'll be here directly, and he'll spoil 
everything! . . . 

Tommy has been taken up by people quite as 
good as you ! People of the highest rank ! 
The Colorado-Grubbs ! 

Limp. Humph ! 

Julia {sharply). What's that? 

Limp. My opinion of the Colorado-Grubbs ! 
Humph ! 

Julia. Well, so long as you confine yourself to re- 
marks like that, when she . . . 
Ah! . . . 

A thin high voice is heard above, quaver- 
ing '^ Lead, kindly Light.'* 

Remember! Salvation first. When she re- 
fuses . . . 

Hodge ( histrionically ) . And humour her ! 

His whisper wakes the age-long silence of 
the loftiest vaults above. 



Julia. Ssh ! 



And they all sit rigid with anticipation. 

[27] 



Miss Bliss appears from the right, tot- 
tering down the stairway by aid of a 
cane. She is an old woman of 
seventy-five, dressed daintily in dove- 
grey with a white cashmere shawl and 
a chantilly lace cap. Her snowy hair 
is arranged in side curls close to 
the temples with combs. She wears 
gold spectacles; and carries over her 
arm a large work-bag, embroidered 
with a mediaeval device. 

They rise to meet her. She commences 
talking at the top of the stairs, and 
continues doing so, all the way down. 

Bliss. Well, well, well ! First Advent Sunday, with 
its blessed message of expectation ! And now 
this beautiful unexpected visitation of nice kind 
friends. Well, well ! And then they say there 
are no miracles ! . . . 
What is it? A symposium, or a conspiracy? 

There is an awkward pause. Then 
Julia answers with effusive pleas- 
antry. 

Julia. Oh, a conspiracy. Miss Bliss! 

Bliss. Well, well, that is as it should be. Con- 
spiracy: a breathing together. It reminds me 
[28] 



of that Great Breathing, when . . . And even 
now, it may be — at almost any moment . . . 
Don't you feel something in the air? A kind 
of trembling ! 

She puts forth a quivering little palsied 
hand. 

And then, my Angel! Is he not perhaps a 
trifle more golden? 

She turns towards her beloved window. 

Hodge. Well, I don't know as . . . 

Julia {quickly). Why, certainly! Distinctly yel- 
lower! {Under her breath) Old fool! . . . 
Let me help you, Miss Bliss. 

And she juts out a succoring arm. 

Bliss. No, no, thank you. I can do very nicely. 
Only, the stairs are just a wee mite steeper 
than . . . 
Oh, but I must not say that ! It Is unbeHeving. 

By this time, she has joined them below. 

So, here we all are ! How radiant you appear ! 
I cannot shake hands, because my poor old . . . 
[29] 



She flushes, and changes the subject 
quickly. 

Oh, such a naughty old woman, I am! You 
look so good and sweet, you three boys, I'd like 
to kiss you I But I must behave : I have just 
come from Early Celebration. There ! — 
Julia, for the company of you. 

She kisses Julia with divine tender- 
ness. Julia, responding, pecks the 
air. 

I always did like kissing. It is such a pretty 
ceremony. Kind of a sacrament! Of course, 
there was Judas, poor thing; but He . . . 
And the children are darlings! They have 
such Httle clean faces! 

Hodge. Kissing ain't improper, when . . . 

Bliss. Yes, I saw you, Timothy! But you really 
mustn't! She was the merriest maid I ever 
had. 

Flabbergasted, he brings his fist down on 
the back of the chair. She mistakes 
his meaning. 

No, I won't sit, thank you. They are awaiting 
my morning word. Stay the whole day, all of 
[30] 



you. There Is to be Greek dancing. And at 
eleven o'clock, as It's Advent Sunday, they are 
donning their new white robes, and are to do 
their Pageant of the Second Coming. Dafty 
win play an archangel! Yes, Is he not a 
genius? You will enjoy the dancing, Timothy. 
You always watch It so Interestedly. 

His expression escapes her, for she is 
busy bringing forth treasure from her 
workbag. It is a small white robe. 

Look! The very last of all ! I finished It this 
morning at my meditations. It Is the Golden 
Child's. Hers had to be last, of course; be- 
cause she Is the firstling of my heart. And the 
first shall be last, you know. 

Wragg. Is that child, the little yellow . . , 

Julia. With the big eyes that . . . 

Hodge. And the legs as . . . 

Bliss {radiant). That's the one! — You see, they 
all know her. Such a frolicsome tot! She 
writes poetry, too. And her laughter! It Is 
like the bark of a little happy dog! . . . 
Oh, how remiss I am! Pomeroy, I never 
thanked you for the flag. He gave me a beauti- 
ful big flag for the chapel. I put It with all 
[31] 



the other flags, friends' and foes' alike, by the 
altar of our Lady of Mercy. They look so 
sweet and neighbourly there together. 

Wragg. You put our flag with the enemy's! 

Bliss. Assuredly! They might not think we loved 
them, otherwise. 

And do you see? These embroidered slits are 
for the wings. 

Limp. Humph ! 

Julia. Er — wings? . . . 

Bliss. Yes, when they come, you know. Oh, I tell 
you, that is the most important point of all. 
Dafty examines her tiny shoulder blades every 
morning, to see whether the pin feathers are 
shewing. And look at this. A little Golden 
Heart, for Him to know her by. 

Julia. Him! Whom? 

Bliss {reproachfully) . Julia! Aren't we all expect- 
ing Somebody? 

Julia. We are ! I don't see how you . . . 

Bliss. Indeed, I am ! I am not as faithless as I seem. 
I look for His coming, in the quickening dawn 
of each unfolding moment. 
[32] 



Julia. But you can't possibly! His coming is only 
known to . . . 

Bliss. Yes, I remember that, too. Neither the day 
nor the hour. But that only means that we 
must be ready for Him, every hour. 
Well, I must be toddling. The children . . . 
Oh, how forgetful of me ! That was dear of 
you, Julia, so dear of you : reading my diary. 

Julia {aghast). What! I! . . . 

Bliss. Yes, I was above you, in the oratory, meditat- 
ing. I hadn't the heart to disturb you: you 
were so happy. So I — meditated. Didn't 
you enjoy that bit about the Golden Child pull- 
ing Dafty into the pantry, and telling him 
solemnly that she loved him? Affectionate 
little . . . 

But suddenly J she sees Julia's face. 

Oh, you are hurt! You think I was uncom- 
panionable, not coming down to share your 
pleasure. Not if you knew my heart, Julia. 
Forgive me. 

Julia. Do you mean, you — don't care? 

Bliss. Care ! You have a child, too. And then, we 
have broken bread together. 
[33] 



Julia. But your private papers? . . . 

Bliss. Private! Among friends? There is nothing 
covered that shall not he revealed; you know 
that. And when It Is Julia . . . 

Julia interrupts her with a nervous 
laugh. 

Julia. Of course, so long as you don't misunderstand 
my motive . . . 

Bliss. There is no misunderstanding, where there is 
love, Julia. We mothers know that! 

Julia {faintly). Job! . . . 

Limp. Don't appeal to me ! I'm no mother ! Never 
had the slightest desire to be one In my life ! 

His manner electrifies the atmosphere 
for a moment. Then Miss Bliss 
sees. It is a joke. 

Bliss {chuckling). I know why you say that! Be- 
cause you are a man ! You cannot be a mother ! 
Of course, you can't. Of course not! . . . 
Well, I must go. 

She makes for the Refectory. Half 
way there, she sees the talking ma- 
chine on her right. 

[34] 



Bless my heart ! What is this ? 

And she totters towards it, 
Hodge. Talking machine. 
Bliss. Talking machine? . . . 

She examines it more closely. 
Do you have to put a penny into it? 

Hodge. There'll be more than a penny put in that 
machine, before we've done ! 

Bliss. I suppose you turn a handle, or do something 
to it, and it goes on talking. 

Hodge. That's the notion. 

Bliss. How very clever of it! Very clever, indeed! 

She leaves it, takes a glance around her 
Gothic Hall, and then looks hack at 
the machine, saying with a certain re- 
serve: 



Yes! 



And resumes her interrupted journey. 



Well, well, I must administer their morning 
word. Make yourselves comfortable {chuck- 
[35] 



ling). Ah, Job! Of course, you can't! Of 
course, you can't. 

Which brings her to the Refectory door, 

]\JIA A {tensely) , Miss Bliss! 

Bliss {mildly). Yes, Julia? 

Julia. Since you know so much, I suppose you 
understand he is coming here this morning. 

Bliss {blankly). He! Who? ... 

Julia {sharply). Who! Aren't we expecting . . . 

Bliss {flaming). Do you mean — Him! . . . 

Her trembling hands involuntarily lift 
themselves towards heaven. 

Who told you ? 

Julia. He sent me word by special messenger last 
night. 

Bliss. Oh, Word Immaculate! Oh, Blessed Mes- 
senger! . . . 

She stands rapt^ transfigured. 

I must go and put them into their little white 
robes at once. 

[36] 



And she passes quickly through the 
doorway. 

Limp. Here's a tangle ! 

Julia. It's the deceit enrages me! The under- 
handed spying hypocrisy! And there's an 
irony, a cunning low-down irony, echoing 
through her every word! 

Limp. An irony! It's triple-fugued! 

Hodge. Did you hear about that altar? Virgin 
Mary, that means! My young people would 
fall flat dead! 

Wragg. And that bit about the flag? 

Julia. And the indecent reference to mothers? 

Limp. Well, what's your next bright act in this hilari- 
ous comedy? 

Julia. The diary! I'll unmask her sins, if it takes 
till Crack of Doom! Let us read it together! 
We have ages: I know her morning word! 
Quick! Prepare for his coming! Then, the 
offer of heaven first! If she refuses . . . 

She pauses for breath. HoDGE and 
Wragg mistake it for a cue, 

[37] 



Both. Give her hell! 

Julia. Exactly ! Come ! 

And they rat up the stairway in single 
file. 

Limp. Damn it, they can't be permitted to carry off 
a think like that ! It's not done ! Julia ! Oh, 
the devil ! 

And he follows, fuming, fondling his 
liver. 

As he vanishes, the two doors fly open 
simultaneously. From the Refectory 
appears Miss Bliss: Dafty, from 
the Scullery. They hurry forward, 
meeting in the middle of the Hall. 

Bliss. Dafty! It exhales, it emanates! It is in the 
air! 

Dafty. There is certainly something in the air ! 

Bliss. Doesn't your heart beat faster? Don't you 
feel yourself growing younger every moment? 

Dafty. Younger ! I'm a rollicking cherub ! 
And they both give a little skip. 

[38] 



Bliss. The fields are ripe with the harvest! No 
more November: it is high summer! There 
goes my shawl! 

Dafty. And, dang it, there goes the crook out of my 
back! 

He stiffens up laboriously. 
Bliss. Whip off your spectacles, man! 

He does, and pockets them. She does, 
hers; placing them on the lectern. 

Oh, you are beautiful! You are young and 
glorious, as the wakening spring! 

Dafty. You are the flower and loveliness of all the 
blossoming Mays! 

Bliss. Quick! We must make ready! I will array 
me for the Bridegroom in my virgin robes! 
Look! I relinquish every earthly prop! He 
is coming ! He is coming ! 

She casts aside her cane; and her little 
pathetic hands wavering uncertainly 
in the air, she begins hobbling up the 
stairway. 

Dafty. He is! He is! But who? . . . 

She turns in ecstasy, crying triumphantly; 
[39] 



Bliss. Who but the very Lord of Glory, to awake the 
slumbering dead ! 

And with accelerating flight, she flutters 
up and away to her room. 

The shawl is left on the table by the east- 
ern window: the cane, on the floor, at 
the bottom of the stairs. 

Dafty, left alone, does a little gambol. 

If required, the Curtain may descend at 
this point. 



THE END OF THE FIRST ACT 



[40] 



THE SECOND ACT 

The Scene and the Situation remain unchanged, 
Dafty's gambol outgrows itself. It becomes deliri- 
ous, pythonic, tarantulous. As he whirls and swiftly 
darts from side to side, his brimstone vest wavers like 
licking fire. 

Altercations are heard above. His rhythms falter 
to a hircine frisk. And Wragg, Limp, Hodge and 
Julia appear flurrying down the stairway. 

Limp. Utterly humiliated! Your brilliant crafts- 
manship, Julia ! 

Julia. How was I to know she'd come sneaking back? 

Wragg. Didn't even frame a decent diplomatic ex- 
planation ! 

Julia. You can't diplomatize, and the goods in your 
hand ! 

Hodge. I offered my pocket! 

Julia. Yes, like a bull of Bashan! ... Oh, do 
stop! She's perfectly complaisant! Making 
such an ill-bred fuss ! 
Well! What demoniac seizure . . . 
[41] 



For, at this moment^ Dafty waltzes 
from behind the Bible into view. 

Dafty. Salvation! He is coming! He is coming! 

And, executing a pirouette, he hops to 
his hole. 

Julia. Everybody knows ! It's Doomsday! I shall 
expect the secrets c^f my heart to be spread 
abroad next ! 

She walks agitatedly to the fireplace, fol- 
lowed by Limp. Wragg squats 
dolefully on the bottom stair, HoDGE 
standing by him. 

Wragg. Why did she want to change her dress? 
She's dressed once today. 

Julia. A man's coming! It's all part of her crawl- 
ing, fascinating . . . 
Yes, that breaks my dream ! 

Hodge. Dream? 

Julia. Yes, one of -my nightmares. Can't 
imagine where I get them ! I must catch them 
from Algernon! First he howls and wakes 
me : then I howl and wake him : every night ! 

Limp. Pleasant household! 

[42] 



She pays no heed. She is labouring 
with gruesome amnesias, 

Julia. It was just like Mary Bliss ! Her eyes I . . . 
Hodge goes over to the eastern window. 

Hodge. Let's get a bit of air. I feel that puthery. 
And, of course, here, they got nothing for it. 

He betokens weanless yearnings. 

Limp. Wish you had my liver! 

Hodge. That's friendly! 

Wragg. Feel funny, myself! Oughtn't! My 
people were always the pink of salubrity. 
Served their country gallantly till ninety. With 
munitions. 

Hodge. What took them? 

Wragg. Senile decay. 

Julia. I can see it now ! Her living image ! Crawl- 
ing! That long grey snake! . . . 

Hodge. Snakes mean something! My mother 
dreamed snakes, before she had me. Then I 
come; and she sort of — faded away. 
What come after the crawl? 
[43] 



Julia. After the crawl ! Naturally, I fled shrieking 
to Algernon ! Insensitive little wretch, there 
he lay, sucking his thumb, as though nothing 
whatever had happened ! 

Hodge. That^s a sign, Julia ! Last time I saw him, 
little beggar had a stomach-ache. 

Julia. He's always having them! It's his elephan- 
tine appetite! But what can I do? I must 
make him fat! 

Hodge. Well, you been a true mother, there, Julia ! 
Reminds me of one of them porpoise. 

Wragg. Hope you're making him a good patriot, 
Julia. 

Julia {fretfully). Oh, yes, he has a box of soldiers 
and a little toy sword. But he's like Alexan- 
der! He's clamouring for catapults already! 
And he's only five ! 

HoDGE. Takes after his father. Lord, how that man 
did live ! He died of cirrhosis. Job. 

Julia (severely). Pardon me, Algernon favours my 
family ! 

HoDGE. Oh, I don't know ! That mouth ! . . . 

[44] 



He performs an expansive flap with his 
hand. 

Wish I could get something for this complaint 
of mine ! I might wallow in the bottomless pit 
itself, and not one finger-tip . . . 

No Lazarus forthcoming^ he fluctuates 
back to Algernon. 

Does he keep good health ? 

Julia. Health! Barring the nightmares and his 
everlasting tummy, he's vitality Itself! Burst- 
ing with It ! 

Only, that's what I say! If a mother doesn't 
understand the rearing of children, who does? 
I may be Ignorant of the spinster mollycoddlings 
of the days of Bruce; but I am a mother! I 
can prove that ! 

Wragg. Nevertheless, Algernon's gastric miseries 
are not quite . . . 

Julia. They are quite as relevant as your contribu- 
tions to the occasion! Surely the pangs of ma- 
ternity have some affinity with a problem In- 
volving offspring! 

Hodge {at the window). But you make us all so 
tired ! 

[45] 



Julia. Fm not craving an audience ! If you're tired, 
yawn at the scenery 1 

Limp (irascibly). Yes, but we're getting nowhere! 
Nothing but ailments, biblical allusions, and 
infantile precocities ! 

She squelches him with blistering polite- 
ness, 

Julia. Have a little patience! Job! We don't 
have to be galloping every moment! Even if 
we're not jigging our legs, our souls are moving 
— somewhere ! . . . 

She flares suddenly to her fiercest hate. 

Can't you understand, that we are simply dan- 
gling on her convenience? Wearing our hearts 
out, whilst that vampire bedizzens herself for 
him/ Oh, we'll get there, quickly enough! 
Watch that stairway! Do you know what I'll 
do? Laugh! Take it for a joke! Watch! 
As soon as ever that palsied old mannequin 
comes crawling . . . 

Hodge (thoughtfully), 'Taln't a crawl. Not really. 
Dodder's the word. 

Wragg. More likely to be a cropper, this time. I 
see, she's forgotten her cane. 
[46] 



Hodge. And Tommy's down on dress. She won't 
make much hit that way. 

Julia. Don't you hate her eyes? So sly! So — 
snaky ! And the way she coils those withered 
white locks of hers. . . . Ha ! I suppose she 
thinks that's fascinating! 

Hodge. There's one thing sure. Face shews it! 
She's not long for this world. 

Julia. Oh, we mustn't let her do that yet ! Pomeroy, 
pick up the cane. 

He does so, and remains standing. 

Hodge (sepulchrally). That female might pass any 
moment! If she don't, it'll be lunacies and 
peculiar dreams ! 

Julia (inwardly). Yes, I wonder what she dreams! 

Hodge. Humph, pleasant weather we're having, ain't 
it ? Sort of — cloudy ! 

He trumpets this in the manner of the 
Angel Gabriel. 

For Miss Bliss with stately gait de- 
scends the stairs. Her hair has 
changed from white to silvery grey. 
[47] 



It flows softly from a middle parting, 
over the ears to a coil at the neck. 
She is dressed in a delicate lavender 
crepe de Chine, daintily frilled, with 
a fichu of white. 

Julia essays her laugh; hut the joke 
chokes in her throat. Only the sick- 
liest little gurgle escapes. 

Wragg, with an air of gallantry, hastens 
forward with the cane. 

Wragg. Here you are, Miss Bliss : here you are ! 

Bliss. No, thank you, Pomeroy. I can do very 
nicely. 

And she sails majestically to the middle 
of the Hall. She speaks with the 
gentle dignity and control of a woman 
of fifty-five. 

They watch her, amazed. Julia is 
petrified. 

The children await Him in the chapel. I 
watched them through the window, as they 
passed. They shewed like trooping angels. 
My Blessed One, my Beloved, led them, her 
golden pennon streaming on the wind like flame. 

[48] 



Then, suddenly, I grew ashamed. Their 
glistering robes gleamed so spotless beneath the 
searching day. My own lay close at hand: it 
has been ready, fifty years. . . . Oh, what does 
it matter, what does old age, failure, anything 
matter; If those young white saints out yonder. 
... So I put on this, instead. 

Their laughter sounded like the quivering of 
sacrlng-bells : their footsteps as they walked 
along, like the pattering of penitential tears. 

There is a discomfortahle silence. 
Then Wragg coughs, and offers her 
the chair, 

Wragg. Take a chair. Miss BHss. 

Bliss {sitting). Thank you, Pomeroy. 

Hodge {soothingly) . There, you'll soon be all right! 

Across her, he warns the others with 
equinoctial privacy. 

Humour her! 

Bliss. Thank you, Timothy, you do: remarkably. 
Mayhap, I shall become less querulous, as I 
grow younger. 

Julia. Art won't bring that about, Mary BHss! 

[49] 



Bliss. Oh, but It can help! Beauty Is half the vic- 
tory! You watch, when He comes ... 

Julia. Ah ! As I thought I 

She settles herself stiffly in the high' 
hacked bench. Wragg and Hodge 
are on the other side of Miss Bliss. 
Limp comforts his liver in the fire- 
place. 

Bliss. And now at last, It Is all coming true! The 
flowers will blossom as before, the trees will 
wave their high branches, the little brother 
birds will sing; but with a new meaning. It 
is coming so quietly, we scarce recognize It. 
As a thief In the night! The trumpets of it 
seem far off, like mustering thunders. But It 
Is nigh the gates. Presently, we shall awake, 
and find the old things done away. 
And to think that it Is a fairy-tale after all! 
All magic wishing ! All wrought and fashioned 
out of dreams! 

Julia {jumping). Out of what? 

Bliss. Dreams, Julia. The very stuff God Is made 

of! Even this other world — the world that 

Is vanishing — It was a dream, too. One that 

had lost Its channels, become clogged up, and 

[so] 



turned to self-destroying nightmares. Now it 
is passing away. We are recovering our lost 
infancy. When He comes, He will have a 
deal to say about that. It will make us under- 
stand sin a little better. It will make us more 
charitable, more pitiful. 

Hodge. You know, Miss Bliss, you hadn't ought to 
talk of God, that way. How would you like 
to be called stuff? What do you say, Julia. 

Julia. Presumptuous, to say the least ! 

Bliss (humbly). Well, I know I am only a little fool- 
ish old woman. But I have seen the light. 

Hodge. I certainly agree with one thing you said. 
There's great changes going on. The world 
will never be the same again. I said that, you 
know, after the very first year of the war. 

He bites his nail, pleased with his per- 
spicacity, 

Wragg. Yes, once we have accomplished our peculiar 
cultural aims, and called a Conference repre- 
senting . . . 

Limp. Constitutionalism for one thing, 1 hope; and 
no sops to radicalism! 
[51] 



Hodge. War Investments for another; and none to 
pacifists ! 

Limp. Property, and no socialism ! 

Hodge. Home Enterprise, and no blooming foreign- 
ers ! Nor trades-unions ! 

Wragg. Why then, divinely guided and adequately 
armed, we shall make the world safe for 
democracy forever! 

Bliss. Yes, He will make all things new. 

Hodge. Who? Wragg? . . . 

Bliss. Timothy! Whom are we expecting? 

Hodge. Oh! . . . 

Well, I don't know about new. He's a bit old- 
fashioned. Though he generally makes things 
hum, when he comes. 

Bliss. There's the point. We must make ready for 
Him. Remember, there were five foolish ones, 
whose oil . . . 

Julia. No need to fuss ! I've made all prepara- 
tions! I suppose the guest room's all right? 

Bliss. Oh, that is always swept and garnished. But 
I meant, ready in ourselves. In our hearts. 

[52] 



Ought we not to begin, by confessing to one 
another, our manifold sins and wickedness? 

Limp. You don't find me confessing! 

Julia, rm not a Catholic ! 

Wragg. I don't mind confessing one. I play poker. 

Hodge. I haven't none. They're washed away. 

Bliss. Oh, but I have. I committed two, only this 
very morning. 

They strain forward eagerly to hear 
them. 

One was vanity. Whilst I arrayed me, just 
now, I caught myself wondering whether He 
would like my hair attired this way. 

Julia. Well, I won't say anything! But I happen 
to know his opinion on that subject ! 
Go on. 

Bliss. I hardly like to confess the other. It was 
one of the deadly ones. 

She fumbles with her handkerchief, 

Julia. Indeed! We'd like to hear it! 

[53] 



Bliss. Oh, yes, I will: I must! . . . 

It came to me whilst you read my diary. Sud- 
denly, wickedly, I — I didn't want you to do It! 

Julia. Oh! . . . 

Her interest in the confession evapo- 
rates. 

Bliss. It was evil pride ! My penmanship was once 
as beautiful as yours, Julia. I imagined, if 
you saw it now, when my poor palsied 
hand . . . 

She breaks of abruptly. She is gazing 
at her outstretched hand with grow- 
ing wonder. JuLiA glances at her 
sharply. 

Julia. Well? . . . 

Bliss. JuHa! This Is the Lord's doing! It is made 
whole ! 

They all crane forward, curious. 

Wragg. Ton my word! 

Bliss. And then, just now, my cane! Wonderful! 
I feel It subtly stealing over me ! A marvellous 
transformation ! 

[54l 



Julia. Yes, I noticed that! Especially about the 
hair! 

Bliss. Te Deum, laudol 

Limp. Auto-hypnotism ! 

Julia. Looks queer to me I 

And she sniffs the air suspiciously, 

Hodge. Wish I could get a drop for my heart! 

Bliss. Hark! Do you not hear a sound? One 
note! And the whirring of chariot wheels! 
Come, let us go forth to welcome Him! 

She rises in an ecstasy, HoDGE presses 
her hack again, with the tact of a 
rhinoceros. 

Hodge. Come now, be calm, be calm ! He'll be here. 
When do you expect him, JuHa? 

Julia. He's due now. Ana not a moment too soon! 

Bliss. Listen! . . . 

They do so, straining their ears. MiSS 
Bliss murmurs as in a trance. 

Ineffable! 

[55] 



Julia (impatiently). It's nothing! I can't think 
what's hindering him ! 

Bliss. Hindering! . . . 

She slightly materializes, turning to- 
wards her, 

Wragg. Perhaps he's. being held up by the policemen. 

She entirely materializes, turning to- 
wards him. 

Bliss. Policemen! . . . 

Wragg. Well, he's a pretty high speeder; and with 
all these cr.owds in the streets . . . 

Bliss. What! Have they begun to rise already? 

And she is hack in the heavens once 
more. 

Wragg. Well, at this hour, yes! I'd have spoken 
myself; only ... I organized the recruiting, 
you see. 

But it'll be a grand spectacle! Flags and 
drums ! Three great funeral marches by the 
band! A captured dirigible ! Cannon! And 
afterwards, full-dress military thanksgivings in 
the cathedral. 

[56] 



Miss Bliss looks about her bewilder- 
ed ly. 

Bliss. What are you talking about, Pomeroy? 

Wragg. The Memorial Service, of course! For 
the dead that have fallen In the war. 

Bliss. Dead! Do we talk of death today? . . . 

Wragg. Well, It's not altogether Inappropriate, Is 
It? If this Isn't the day of death, what Is? 

Hodge. I agree with you, Pom. 

Julia. Everybody does, who isn't Impervious! 

Bliss. Oh, how blind I have been! Of course, I 
see! You, who dwell In the counsels of the 
Most High, you have made ready, you are 
prepared! Only I, In. my darkness, have dwelt 
aloof! Of course, of course! I should have 
remembered Lazarus! And that young man, 
the only son of his mother — the widow ... I 
see! . . . 

He will appear then. In the midst of all that 
stricken multitude yonder; and calmly, maje'stl- 
cally, with one awful word of power . . . 

Hodge. Come, he's not a megaphone ! He's voice 
enough ! But not to grapple with a crowd like 
that! 

[57] 



Bliss. Not Voice enough! The Word Eternal go- 
ing out from the Father ! 

Hodge. Can't you believe? After all, he's only 
human ! 

Bliss. No, no, that's heresy! There is that Other 
Side ! And you know what the Creed says 
about that. 

Hodge {disgusted). Well, you expect miracles! 

Bliss. Undoubtedly! The greatest miracle of all! 
Don't you? 

Julia riseSy utterly exasperated. 

Julia. Mary Bliss, have you no mortal notion in your 
transfigured head, of ordinary earthly limita- 
tions? Do come out of the clouds ! This isn't 
a Manhatma, we're expecting! It's a plain 
two-legged man of God, running a revival. 

Bliss. Exactly what I say! Revival: a making alive 
again. From the Latin, you know. 

Hodge. You get such rum ideas about people. Have 
you ever seen him? 

Buss {wistfully). Not face to face! But, of course, 
the pictures . . . 

[58] 



Julia. They're totally misleading! Either comic 
travesties by the cartoonists; or touched-up hor- 
rors of himself and family by the photogra- 
phers. 

Bliss. I think that large one of Himself and Family 
by Raphael in the Louvre . . . 

Hodge. If you mean the one with little Johnny doing 
the pious at the back of him, it ain't a bit like 
him. That was only for sale. 

Bliss. I know He will be different from anything I 
ever dreamed ! I am anticipating that. 

Hodge. You bet ! He surprises everybody. 

Bliss. Yes, He always did. 

Limp. Hadn't you better tell her precl'sely what's 
your game? 

Julia. Perfectly useless! You see her mental con- 
dition ! That stuff she has been taking, I sup- 
pose ! 

Bliss. I know my mind is very dark. What stuff? 
I have taken nothing but the Blessed Sacrament, 
all morning. 

Julia. You know what stuff ! That stuff for palsied 
hands ! 

[59] 



Bliss. How thankless of me ! That heavenly 
draught! . . . 

I perceive I am still unready. Instruct me, 
Julia. 

See, I will obey you like a simple child. 

Julia regards her with a quick search- 
ing look. 

JuLA. Obey! Me? . . . 

Bliss. As His chosen one. The revelation came to 
you. You were the first of all the elect. 
Tell me, how did His Messenger appear? 
Like a dream, softly? Or in shining light? 

Julia. Messenger! What messenger? 

Bliss. The Messenger that brought unto you His 
word last night. 

Julia. Don't play the hypocritical innocent ! All the 
world knows the appearance of a messenger ! 

Bliss. All the world! They are everyone of them 
awake but me ! Had he — from his shoulders 
— you know? . . . 

Julia. I don't know what uniform he wore! I was 
busy picking the lobster for Algernon. The 

[60] 



maid answered the door, and brought me the 
message. Just nine words. 

Bliss. As simply as that! And His Messenger! 
That is how He Himself will come ! And in 
unexpected guise ! . . . 

Nine! . . . 

The mystic number thrills her with re- 
membrances of Dante, 

What were they? 

Julia. Pump up the pigskin. Kick off at ten prompt. 

Bliss. Yes, most unexpected. I must school myself 
for that. 

Hodge. You'll never manage. He springs a new 
one on you every time. 

Bliss {nodding her head). Yes, I'm learning. I 
must not be presumptuous and make remarks. 
He is not a little schoolboy. 

Wragg. And another thing! Keep silent about 
those flags. He's patriotic. 

Bliss. Is He? Why? 

Wragg. He's one of us. 

[6i] 



Bliss. I thought we were one of Him. Five, I mean, 
of course. 

Julia. Don't split hairs ! — Whatever else you 
choose to do with them ! He'll have something 
to say to you about that! And about your 
educational Ideas ! 

Hodge. And about dancing ! 

Julia. And about Dafty ! 

Hodge. And play-acting! He'll have a lot to say 
about play-acting! 

Miss Bliss glances pathetically from 
one to the other , as they stab her right 
and left. 

Bliss. I know I have been very remiss. Of course, I 
have tried to do my duty. But one's best Is 
only filthy rags. 

Hodge. There's just one thing about him. You'd 
better be on. If he gets nosing Into your money 
affairs . . . 

How much of old Nick's fortune have you left, 
by the bye ? 

Bliss {guilelessly), I don't know. I have never 
counted. 

[62] 



Hodge. Well, don't. I'll watch that for you. 

Bliss. Thank you, Timothy ! . 

Of course, I don't know. I have always held 
by the Larger Hope, myself; and still do, for 
all living souls. Even Satan, poor thing. But 
I have an awful fear for myself that, after all, 
I shall be damned. 

She contemplates this doom with deep 
solemnity. Then her face lightens 
with sudden joy. 

Ah, but He will love my babies ! 

Julia {ominously). Time will shew ! 

Bliss {radiantly). Nay, eternity! And when He 
finds them waiting yonder in the chapel, a little 
flower-garden all in white; and amidmost of 
them that precious Heart of Gold . . . 

She is interrupted by the raucous toot of 
an automobile, followed by the grind- 
ing whir of wheels upon the gravel 
outside. 



Oh! 



They all rise hurriedly to their feet. 



I never dreamed that it would sound like that! 
[63] 



She remains standing in the middle of 
the hall, her hands uplifted like the 
Blessed Firgin's at the moment of 
Annunciation. 

Hodge, Wragg and Julia rush jubi- 
lantly to the window, and look out. 
Limp still hugs his gangrene in the 
fireplace. 

Hodge. Do you see? That's him in the togs! 

Bliss. My soul doth magnify the Lord! 

Julia. Look at his car! Red as blood! But how 
appropriate ! 

Bliss. My spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Saviour! 

Wragg. And the flags ! Simply smothered in them ! 
What a patriot! 

Bliss. For He hath regarded the lowliness of His 
handmaiden! 

And for one moment, she beholds the 
Beatific Vision. 

If required, the Curtain may descend at 
this point, 

THE END OF THE SECOND ACT 
[64] 



THE THIRD ACT 

The Scene and the Situation remain unchanged. 
Julia, Wragg and Hodge are still at the window; 
Limp, in the fireplace. Miss Bliss, with hands up- 
lifted, abides in ecstasy. After a moment she sinks 
back into her seat. Her hair has turned distinctly 
darker. She has now the poise and manner of a woman 
of forty-five. 

Julia. TheyVe taken him to the Guest Room: so 
that's all right! Now, Job, Timothy, Pom- 
eroy, let's get busy. I have full instructions. 
He's dressed. Already got his what-d'you-call- 
it on. By the time he has combed and brushed 
his . . . 

Bustling down, she halts abruptly, glar- 
ing at Miss Bliss. She tours around 
her: afterwards glancing suspiciously 
about the hall. 

Come, Mary Bliss, we can't have you posing 
there, looking like Madame Somebody's Hair 
Restorer! He'll want the centre of the . . . 
[65] 



Bliss. Naturally! How thoughtless! 



Julia. Ah ! 



She walks meditatively towards the win- 
dow. There she picks a pink rose 
from the bowl on the table, and fixes 
it in her corsage. JULIA watches her 
every moment. 



Meanwhile, Wragg and HoDGE range 
helplessly at the back of the hall. 



Pomeroy, move that chair. 

He does so, listlessly, a little to the left. 

Now, Timothy ! Wind the talking machine. 

Hodge. And what about my heart? Job, you! 

Limp. Haven't I a liver? 

Wragg. It's In my spine, I . . . 

Limp. Oh, shut up ! . . . 

Isn't It enough, having to endure his coming, 
without listening to the last rattllngs of sen- 
ility? 

He stirs the fire. Wragg watches him 
woebegonely. HoDGE, with a bad 
[66] 



grace and many grimaces, sees to the 
machine. 

Wragg. But it has been coming on steadily all morn- 
ing! 

Limp. Mine's never off ! And it grows! 

Hodge. Mine's the limit! 

Julia. Now, Job; hymn books! Bottom of the 
stairs. 

He goes reluctantly, and brings them. 
Timothy ! Collection plate ! 

He goes with alacrity. And keeps it. 
There's your place, Mary Bliss! 

Miss Bliss meekly resumes her chair. 

Bliss. Now that at last it is about to happen, it 
seems the most ordinary circumstance in the 
world. Nothing appears different! Here we 
all are, just the same little group of loving 
friends, going about our happy daily business; 
and presently — He will come ! Is not life 
beautiful? 

[67] 



Julia distributes the hymn books. She 
then appropriates the middle of the 
high'backed bench, motioning Limp 
to the faldstool, HoDGE to her right, 
and Wragg to her left. 

Julia. Job, sit down. Timothy! Pomeroy! . . . 
Now we can start at once. 

She opens her book. Her voice assumes 
a certain unctuousity, as she an- 
nounces. 

M'yes ! Hymn number one : the first hymn, 
please. Timothy, start the melody. 

Bliss. What quaint little hymn books ! So — red ! 

Hodge. That's Johnny ! Since he's bagged the hymn 
book privilege, he's made things boom. The 
paper's punk; but they sell like sin. 

Julia. Hymn number one ! The first hymn, please/ 

Limp. Yes, but look here, Julia ! You can't go stick- 
ing measly books before us, demanding song, 
in this high-handed manner! 

Julia. He has to be worked up, hasn't he? I'm 
only following instructions ! He'll never make 
his entrance, unless he's properly worked up. 
He never does. 

[68] 



Limp. Worked up ? 

Julia. Perfectly simple! It's what they do at the 
theatres ! You tickle the audience with expecta- 
tion: then, just before the hero enters, you give 
them a patriotic air or something. Naturally, 
they mistake their emotion for his magnetism, 
and he . . . 

She searches for a phrase, HoDGE 
finds it, 

Hodge. Cops the lot ! 

Julia. Exactly! Entire reputations have been built 
that way. 

Limp. Have they? Well, there'll be no vicarious 
magnetism from me, that's flat! 

Julia. I'm not asking magnetism! I'm only asking 
you to sing! 

Limp. Then I won't ! 

Julia. You're here, you're musical. It's good for the 
liver, and you've got to ! 

Limp. If I do, may I sizzle In . . . 

Julia {severely). Thank you! We will leave that 
word for him! 

[69] 



Hodge. Me and Wragg'll do. He's a crow's voice, 
anyway I 

Limp. Ha! . . . 

// is a snort of contempt. But he be- 
thinks him. 

Crow, eh? . . . 

And darting venom at HoDGE, he rips 
open the hook, and joins the choir. 

Julia. Now! We will unite in singing, if you please, 
hymn number . . . 
Oh! Algernon! . . . 

Hodge. What about him? 

Julia. Nurse was to bring him to the chapel. Last 
night's lobster so depressed him I thought per- 
haps the revival . . . 

Bliss {rising). Oh, do let me fetch Dafty! 

Julia. Dafty! 

Bliss. Yes, he's our spiritual adviser, you know; and 
so amusing! I think I'd like him to see these 
odd little books. He'd have something quite 
bright to say about them, I'm sure. 

[70] 



Julia. Certainly not! We're here to educate, not 
amuse ! 
Come, let us join together . . . 

Dafty pops in from the Scullery, a 
fiddle in his hand, 

Dafty. Here I am, ma'am! Just put my ear to the 
door, to spy where you were ! Can't stop, kids 
expecting me, I'll come later. Oh, we are hav- 
ing such fun in the chapel ! 

Julia. Fun in the chapel! I never did In all my 
days . . . 

Dafty. No, ma'am, you never did! Frolic! 
They're making the House of the Lord ring 
again! Quite like old times! First it was 
blind man's buff! Then I started them Gath- 
ering Nuts and May up in the chancel! Then 
honey-pots ! And now, the Golden Child has 
got herself up in a surplice, and is taking off 
Parson Glibsplt from the pulpit ! Lordy, how 
she can act! And language! Real preacher's 
pow-wow, mind you, without the time-serving! 
All about miracles and the millennium ! 

Well, I must skedaddle! Just back for my 
fiddle, that's all! Promised them a jig! Hey 
cockalorum ! Such a lark ! 
[71] 



And with a cut and a caper, he scrapes 
himself out, 

Julia's composure is like the arctic 
north. . 

Limp. Well, I don't see how these interruptions are 
going to help his entrance ! 

Julia responds with a distant wintry 
smile. 

Julia. We shall see ! Timothy, may I trouble you, 
please? 

But she cannot keep this up long. Her 
next remark rages forth like a sirocco. 

Hymn one! 

Hodge operates, and the machine grinds 
out the hymn refrain in shattering 
rag -time blasts. 

They begin singing in unison, HoDGE 
and Limp glowering, each intent on 
bellowing the other down. At the 
end of the first verse, HoDGE puts in 
a tenor. Not to be outdone. Limp 
in the second, retaliates with bass. 
Ambitious of alto, WraGG later soars 
[72] 



to falsetto. The women contribute 
treble, Miss Bliss dropping out with 
a scared face, after the first few lines; 
and their raptures culminate in a four- 
part chorus of Julia and the men. 

Choir. Comfe, rouse your lungs and crack your, ribs, 
Revival's hymn to swell : 
We offer heaven: the guy that jibs, 

We give to burning hell. 
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! In his sinful fat, he fries ! 
The savour of him smokes aloft: we smell him 
in the skies! 

Bliss. Don't you think the sentiment a little . . . 

Choir. Ssh! . . . 

And the refrain blares onward, belching 
into hymn; 

We've closed the gambhng joints and clubs. 

We brighten where we are : 
The damned blink up like weary dubs, 

And lamp us from afar. 
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! In their sinful fat, they fry ! 
They frizzle and the juice spits up: we taste 
them in the sky! 

Bliss. Saint Gregory maintained . . . 

[73] 



Julia {staccato ) . His — own — words ! Sing ! 

Miss Bliss bows humbly; but her mind 
will stray back to the Council of Con- 
stantinople. Meanwhile, more hymn 
disgorging , her fellows return to their 
feast; 

Choir. They hoist the booze, they dance, they swear, 
Their godless playhouse packs; 
But now we've got the doughnuts where 

The chicken got the axe. 
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! In their sinful fat, they fry ! 
They roast like sacrificial goats : we'll eat them 
by and bye ! 

During the last verse, The Reverend 
Tommy Trail, clad in immaculate 
football costume striped, comes jaunt- 
ing down the stairs. He is a red- 
faced man with huge clutching paws 
and a sardonic grin. He has mim- 
icked Satan so long, he rather resem- 
bles him, 

Hodge, Wragg and Julia settle them- 
selves with the delighted anticipation 
of the already comfortably saved. 
Limp looks on, in the manner of Mis- 
souri. Miss Bliss sits with eyes 
[74] 



downcast, trembling, never once dar- 
ing to look round. Trail is a Voice 
to her, no more. As he begins to 
speak, she essays to rise, but her knees 
fail her. 

Trail's accent is less purely though 
more markedly American, than that 
prevalent, say, in Boston. 

Trail. Warm up, warm up, you bunch of soda-foun- 
tain freezers ! That's not the way to handle a 
hymn! Geraround It! Geraway with it! 
Biff! Whiz it into goal! Some of you sissi- 
iied guys have no more kick in your souls than 
hocked fleas. Aunt Lizzie there, for example ! 

Bliss. Elizabeth! . . . 

And she beholds the sainted cousin of the 
Virgin. 

Trail. You! You! Old Lavender Crepe-de-chine 
with the flower in your chest ! It's roaring, not 
roses, gains the Throne of Grace ! Cough up, 
you four-flusher ! 

Julia. Such discernment! He spots her directly! 

Bliss. Lord, I am but an ignorant, sinful woman, and 
very foolish. I — don't understand, 
[75] 



Trail (mimicking her). Language don't suit, eh? 
Too coarse and vulgah! See here! I learned 
my language way back in the little home town 
where I was raised; and my little home town 
is some conversationalist, berlieve muh! My 
language has been good enough to wake up 
Philadelphia : it's been good enough for Colo- 
rado-Grubb; good enough for every knock- 
kneed, sheep-jowled, rabbit-gutted minister in 
the land of the brave and the free ; and I guess 
it'll do for you ! 

Bliss. I hope I may Improve, Lord. I thought may- 
hap it was Aramaic. 

Trail. Now, curltout! It was Number One Brand 
Up-to-date Revivallstic U. S. A. ; and don't you 
f orgerit ! Are you saved ? 

Bliss. I fear not. Lord. 

Trail. Then you're damned! 

Miss Bliss crosses herself, closing her 
eyes in dumb agony. After a mo- 
ment, she falters; 

Bliss. Amen, Lord. I will try to bear it. Thank 
you. 

Trail. Bear It! This Isn't pink teas and frizzy hair ! 
What Is it? Theatres? Cocktails? Shake- 
[76] 



speare and the Lady of the Lake? Nit! It's 
hell! 

Julia. Such fire ! 

Bliss. Yea, Lord. 

Trail. Lord! . . . 

Say, what's the handout? Put me wise, Pud- 
dlngface. 

Hodge (histrionically). Peculiar! Top story! You 
know! 

Trail. Got you, Stephano ! 

Bliss. Stephen ! They are all here 1 

She gazes before her, as in vision. 
Trail watches her interestedly. 

Trail. Acts kind of bughouse, don't she? Only, see 
here ! I didn't come to seek and to save sana- 
toriums. They have to be opulent high-brow 
stiffs with pork in their blocks, to get me. 

Julia. Oh, but you must ! You were engaged to save 
her! 

Trail {turning). Who's Sister Buttinsky? 

Julia. Who's who? ... 

[77] 



He grins at her humourless European- 
ism, and motions to Wragg. 

Trail. Wield the jawbone, Samson ! 

Wragg. This Is Mrs. Manners. 

Julia. Yes, we've corresponded, you know. Did 
you get my . . . 

Trail. You betcha ! Say, that sum was for salvation 
only, ^^cluslve of expenses. Glad to meecha: 
take this one ! . . . 

He thrusts at her his great left paw. 

Those rubber-neck crape-heads In the square 
have fondled the other to a frazzle ! Took a 
collection, and gave them my Lazarus, come 
forth! Ever see me do that stunt? Takes 
some pep, representing the stone and all ! 

Hodge. That the one where you tell them, Colorado- 
Grubb stands four-square for the New Jerusa- 
lem? 

Trail. No, you got It all wrong: that was the other 
Lazarus! Gee, they swallowed It! Biggest 
hit I've made since Bethany, way back In God's 
Own Country! And the crape-heads weeping 
buckets ! 

[78] 



He roars with the remembrance of his 
triumph, 

I left Johnny to It. He savvied a chance of go- 
ing about his father's business, and dropped off 
with a bundle of hymns. Say, that's some kid! 
He's putting it over all right, all right! He'll 
be here, when he's through. 

Bliss {fearfully). Which — John? 

Trail. Why, mine! My own particular! There's 
only one. 

Bliss. The Beloved! Oh, he will speak for me! 
He is wise, he will understand! 

Trail. Say, that's not so bughouse! Appreciating 
Johnny shews some bean. Maybe, I'll snatch 
her from the burning yet. 

Bliss. Lord! . . . 

Trail. Well, what is it? Tango, cards, liquor? . . . 

Hodge. In this place ! 

Trail. Wash the marrer with her? Why don't she 
speak? Who is the mutt, anyway? 

Julia. Why, she's the woman ! You remember, old 
Nicholas Biggs . . . 
[79] 



Hodge interposes a loud cautioning 
cough; but too late. Trail is on. 

Trail. What! The millionairess! . . . 

Hodge. Humph, fine weather, we're . . . 

And Wragg murmurs something about 
rain. 

Trail. Now, curout the barometer stuff ! Curitout, 
see! This Is business! Here's a poor perish- 
ing cocoa-sodden daff, hollering for bread; and 
you hand out hunks of cold storage about the 
weather! Leave this to muh! . . . 



Julia 

Wragg 

Hodge 



That's all very well ; but you . 

. (/o^^//z^r) . ^ Yes, but lookhere, I say . . . 

'Taint good enough: w^ . . . 



Trail. Hold off, you grafters ! . . . 

He executes a football manoeuvre with 
a hop, rush, and a slide, landing neatly 
beside Miss Bliss. 

Say, Ma ! Don't you listen to them ! They're 
only a bunch of red-headed, starch-necked 
crooks and wind-jammers, anyway! Listen to 
muh ! Only berlieve ! Only berlieve ! And 
I'll yank you into glory in half a jiff ! 

[80] 



Bliss. Oh, but my sins ! My vain pride ! Betrayals! 

Trail. That's the way! Stir 'em up, Ma! 

Bliss. My life of fruitless half-intentions! Doubts! 
Despairs! 

Trail. You gorit, Ma! Stick your feet in the 
tPO.ugh ! Roll yourself over in it ! 

Bliss. My iniquities ! 

Trail. It's berrer to have them! It's berrer! Or 
you don't get the berlood ! Only berlieve, only 
berlieve, you lobster, and your sins will pass — 
kerplunk! — like Gadarene swine. You may 
look the same ! You may act the same ! These 
guys here, and your neighbours may never see 
the difference ! But only berlieve, and you'll be 
whiter than snow ! 

Bliss. Lord, I believe! Help Thou mine unbelief! 

Julia. Mary Bliss! Do you realize what you are 
quoting? 

Trail. Beat it, Sourface ! I'm boss here ! 

Hodge. Yes, but . . . 

Trail. Now, Carrots! . . . 

Ataboy ! Work it up. Ma ! Gerabit of punch 
[8i] 



into It ! Rah-rah-rah ! — Tackle ! Don^t you 
see the light? Think of Home and Mothuhr! 
Don't you hear your Mothuhr calling to you? 
Think of your poor old Daddy's silvery hairs, 
the village homestead! Remember little Wil- 
lie's dying words ! 

Wragg, Hodge and Julia cannot hear 
up against this. They take out their 
handkerchiefs and mop their eyes. 
Meanwhile^ Trail addresses his de- 
ity; 

Look at her, Fathuhr ! Can't squeeze a tear ! 
Dry as a prohibition state ! 

He turns upon her savagely ^ dancing ^ 
gesticulating J foaming with inspira- 
tion; 

Can't you gerabit of fear Inside of you ? Don't 
you smell the pitch and brimstone? You'd 
berrer ! You'd berrer ! Or you won't be saved 
by me ! Don't you see the licking flames, the 
red-hot lake, the worm undying, and old Beel- 
zebub hopping about and watching for you? 
Rah-rah-rah! Tackle! Boom! Boodle! Boost! 
Geewhiz! Can't you 5^^ him? 

She is not looking; hut everyhody else 
can. 

[82] 



Bliss. I behold, at Is were, three Blessed Shapes! 
Elizabeth, and Stephen, and that Beloved One ! 

Trail. Saints won't help any! There's only one 

way ! — Mine ! Wrestle, you dub ! Get your 

heart jumping! Make it burn and bubble like 
a clambake ! 

Bliss. Yes, yes ! A glow, a strange warmth ! And 
with It, a deeping unutterable peace ! 

Trail (quickly) . You don't get peace yet! Not till 
after the . . . 

Bliss. But I do ! It's the truth ! I do ! 

Trail. Then, If you do. It's Satan, and you're 
damned ! It's not peace : It's terruhr, you want ! 
Terruhr! Terruhr! Can't you understand 
the word ? — T-E-R-R-0-R, terruhr ! Get It In 
your heart! Get It in your livuhr! Get it in 
your nuhrves, your spine, you dough-nut ! . . . 

Limp and the saved sh^.w signs of un- 
derstanding. 

Bliss. But I don't! I cannot lie! I don't! 

Trail. Then I give you up ! You're a goner ! You, 
your ox, your ass, your man-servant and your 
maid-servant, your autos and your grand pianos 

[83] 



• — yes, and all your pap-soused infidel un- 
spanked babies, too ! — sJiall perish in the pit of 
fiuhr! 

Bliss. Oh! . . . 

She rises, tense with some deep thought, 
not yet made clear. Trail mistakes 
the action, and pounces on her at 
once; 

Trail. Hold that! Hold it tight! Hold it with 
your teeth! Wow! Gorher! . . . 
Now, we'll take the collection. Where's the 
dipper? 

HoDGE. That's me. I'm usher ! 

But Trail restrains him, capturing 
the alms-dish. 

Trail. Nix ! 

Hodge {reproachfully) . I'm a Baptist! 

He crawls abjectly to his seat. 

They all watch Trail earnestly, as he 
approaches Miss Bliss. She is gaz- 
ing straight before her. He gently 
insinuates the alms-dish into view. 

[84] 



Trail. Now, Ma ! 

She answers with slow, bitter irony; 

Bliss. And whence Is this to me ? Thine Is the king- 
dom, the power and the glory ! All that I have 
Is Thine! 

This sends a shiver around the Hall, 

Trail. All! Will you put that down on paper? 

Bliss. My handwriting Is a little shaky. But I will. 
In letters of fire ! 

Trail sends the alms-dish spinning to 
Hodge. 

Trail. Here, take It, Rufus ! Put her thar ! 

He probers the frazzled paw. But 
Miss Bliss does not see it. She is 
looking into deep abysses. 

The others start up in violent expostula- 
tion; I 



Wragg 

Julia 

Hodge 



(together) 



I'm darned. If he . . . 
He — shall — not . . . 
Of all the swindling . . 



Trail. Hold off, you panhandlers ! Heard the chink 
of gold, did you? See here, I'm come to save 
[85] 



this soul, not you! And I'll save it, or bust! 
. . . Keep to It, Ma ! I'm with you 1 Arma- 
geddon'll have nothing on me, by the time I'm 
through 1 Say, this is to be one big bout, stakes 
down, between the Dragon and the Lamb ! Get 
her going, do you hear? Rah-rah-rah! Biff! 
Whiz ! Goal! . . . It's yours ! Take it ! 
Salvation, full and free ! 

He commences to wipe the sweat from 
his brow. 

Bliss {quietly). I refuse it. 

He leaves the sweat to freeze as it may. 

Trail. You — what ? 

Bliss. I do not desire salvation, thank you very much. 

Trail. But you've gotta! You've gotta! You 
can't give all that money, without being saved ! 

Bliss. Then I will find some other way of serving my 
beloved little damned. 

And she sits down calmly , awaiting the 
brimstone. 

Trail. Well, I'll be . . . 

Dafty skips in, and catches him up; 
[86] 



Dafty. Yes, but before you are, I'd like you to carry 
away the remembrance of a few trifling wheezes 
by myself. You, sir, I take it, are a funny 
man. They may amuse you. They may amuse 
also my good friends in the Other World. 

Trail. Other world! What other world? 

Dafty (airily). Oh, both, both! The infinitude of 
them, in fact ! It's all One to me ! 

Trail. Who is the lynx-eyed prowler, anyway? 

Hodge (histrionically) . He's only a poor old . . . 

Dafty. Not so softly, Mr. Timothy, not so softly : he 
mightn't hear ! . . . 

Mr. Timothy was about to inform you in his 
delicate way, that I am a fool. Well, sir, I 
am. A sort of professional one, like yourself. 
I don't know whether you happen to belong to 
our High and Ancient Secret Order; but I im- 
agine not. There are curious initiations, rather 
dangerous — fiery ordeals, sacrificial burnings ! 
We are divided into two lodges — my own af- 
filiations, I leave you to infer. The one suckles 
its folly from the wisdom of the serpent: the 
other . . . 

His eyes rest for a moment on Miss 
Bliss. 

[37] 



from the innocence of the dove. The Illustrious 
and Sublime Grand Master combines both. 

Trail. See here ! You can't put one over me, by that 
line of goods! 

Dafty. Ah, that's precisely what the acquisitive little 
youth in the chapel said. But they made him 
eat it, all the same. 

Trail. Say, wash the marrer with you? Eat what? 

Dafty. A confection, sir. My own making ! In ap- 
pearance, a fine, sweet, tasty piece of huckle- 
berry pie ; In reality, a dose of calomel. One of 
my little jokes! The last time I saw him, they 
were stuffing his pennies Into the poor-box; and 
heaving him heavenwards with one of the flags. 
Tossing the blanket, you know 1 

Wragg. That's how you let them treat flags, is it? 

Dafty. Not our own, sir! Only the enemy's! 

Hodge. Which poor-box was that? 

Dafty. The one with the double-padlock, Mr. Tim- 
othy. 

Limp. And that's what you call pies ! Calomel ! 

[88] 



Dafty. Only for bad livers, sir. Anachronistic mis- 
anthropists with cantankerous ones; and con- 
verted little youths of trading proclivities, with 
white ones. 

Julia. What makes you so fiendish? You seem ob- 
sessed by some foul spirit of perversity. You're 
a kind of nightmare ! 

Dafty. Just a joke, ma'am! It's the Secret of our 
Order. I can feel one coming on me, now! 
Lordy, lordy. He can't leave me alone ! He's 
a rare one for His bit of fun, our Illustrious 
and Sublime Grand Master! 

Trail. And who is your Illustrious and Sublime 
Grand Master, anyway? 

Dafty (chuckling) . The Holy Ghost. Every way. 

Julia. Stoker, how dare you ! 

Dafty. Oh, I dare, all right ! That's one of our in- 
itiations. Daren't you? 

Julia. This is infamous ! 

Dafty. Is it? I thought It was part of our religion. 

Julia. Religion doesn't teach people to make comedy 
out of sacred things ! 

[89] 



Dafty. Yours mightn't! It taught Saint Francis! 
It taught the thirteenth century! It taught the 
Lord Jesus Christ Himself, when He made that 
little joke about Dives, and the " great gulf 
fixed." And when He put that pun upon Peter ! 
And that good one He palmed off on the teeto- 
tallers, down in Cana of Galilee. 

Trail. How do you know, your interpretation . . . 

Dafty. Ah, you see, I'm initiated! I found out a 
lot of things like that, when they cracked the 
third chestnut, down in the Seventh Circle ! 

Hodge. Look here ! / belong to a Secret Society. 
I'm treasurer. How did a fellow like you come 
to be initiated? 

Dafty. A little accident, Mr. Timothy, a few short 
years ago. When I was in the world, taking 
care of other people's money, like you. 

Hodge. What was it? 

Dafty. I died. 

They look at him with amazement. 

Trail. Say that again. 

Dafty. I died. 

[90] 



Trail (ironically). Anything else ? 

Dafty. Yes, I was buried. There were grand ob- 
sequies. And I went to my own place. Then, 
like Lazarus, I came forth. 

Trail. Say, have you the nuhrve to stand there, and 
tell me flatly, you were dead? 

Dafty. TU tell you something to scare you worse 
than that! I'm alive. 

Trail. See here ! You talk about coming back from 
the grave. Are you saved or damned? 

Dafty. Both! Saved, when I forget myself, and 
make a joke. Damned, every time I begin 
thinking about my soul. 

Trail. You can't geraway with it, that way. Have 
you been in hell? 

Dafty. Frequently! Lot of good people down 
there. 

Trail. Well, haven't I named them? 

Dafty. Yes, but you don't properly know hell. Not 
yet. I regret to disillusionize you, my lurid sir, 
but you really paint that place abominably. 
[91] 



Trail. I mean to. I guess, your hell Is one of these 
high-brow Fifth Avenoo gin-palaces, with feath- 
er-beds and Selections by Paderewski in the par- 
lour! My hell's something fierce ! It's smoke, 
and sulphur, and bubbling gulfs of fiuhr! 
Don't that paint hell properly? 

Dafty. No. It's worse ! And absolutely real I 

Trail. Say, here's a knock-out! What brought you 
down there ? 

Dafty. My sins, mostly. Sometimes — other peo- 
ple's. 

Trail. If you call that theology, I don't! 

Dafty. Oh ! What brought Christ there ? 

Hodge. Well, I ain't orthodox, I ain't dogmatic : I'm 
just plain Baptist! And if it's your outworn 
Catholic Creed you're trying to ram down my 
throat . . . 

Dafty. I'm not! It's your brand-new Baptist Bible. 
That bit of Peter's about the spirits in prison. 

Bliss. What sins brought you there, Dafty? 

Dafty. Do you mean my own? . . . 

Bliss. Yes, — -your own. 

[92] 



Dafty. Humph ! I don't know whether they will all 
be quite respectable to confess, in the presence 
of so many of the saved. You see, when I was 
on earth, I wasn't exactly an anybody. I was 
a successful man. 

Hodge. Do you mean, rich? 

Dafty. Stank with it! — Millions! That was my 
first big sin — Theft ! Next, I built great pal- 
aces, and squandered myself like a hog! — Lux- 
ury! I ground the faces of the poor, I fattened 
upon the harlotries, took usury, interest, tene- 
ment rents, grew ruthless. Then came Pride 
and Vainglory, and all the swollen Pomps that 
follow in the path of pitiless Ambition. And 
with them, uncharity of heart, vile rancour, re- 
sentments, bitter hate. Well, God had His lit- 
tle joke on me for that. He brought me low. 

Trail. Didn't I say? That comes of dying without a 
religion. 

Dafty. Oh, but I didn't! You don't remember, but 
you saved me yourself. There is a specially 
deep hell for that. Down among the liars, the 
abominations, the blasphemers ! After my con- 
version, my other sins seemed light. But they 
weren't! Nor their punishment! I coveted 
my neighbour''s goods, his powers, even his vir- 
[93] 



tues! I grew envious, and belittled him! I 
tried to desecrate his highest gifts! I was 
present at the surpliced blessing of the workers 
of iniquity, and took God's Name in vain. I 
have cherished the dishonourable deeds of my 
fathers, and made their honour to perish from 
the earth ! I have beclouded my nation's glory 
in a glamour of empire-building. I have be- 
smirched my flag! Last of all, I committed 
murder. I began mildly, in my own fac- 
tories and slums. Then I fostered pacific occu- 
pation in foreign countries. Then I went in 
wholesale! — I poured my billions into it! 
Then — I died. 

Trail. And then? 

Dafty. Hell. 

Trail. Didn't that make you berlieve and tremble? 

Dafty. I trembled. You don't believe at first. You 
don't know you are there. You tremble first, 
and believe afterwards. 

Bliss. And your — resurrection? 

Dafty. It took innumerable ages. You don't reckon 

ages there, as you do here. You get them — 

wrong end of the telescope, so to speak. There 

I lay, outside time, beyond space, in the very 

[94] 



bottom of the pit, pondering my sins. They 
came one by one, each with its own pang, until I 
saw them — real ! Then I had to name them 
aright. Did you ever try naming your sins 
aright? I did. And then there appeared — 
the Optical Illusion ! . . . 

He sees it again in his imagination; 

It was an Enormous Eye ! 

Julia. An Eye? . . . 

He fixes her like a basilisk^ and then 
nods his head once, solemnly. 

Dafty. I had been gazing at it all those aeons, and 
had never known it. I mistook it for the sky. 
And it was that Watching Dread. And at last 
• — it winked at me. 

Julia. Winked! . . . 

Dafty. Yes ! Not one of your impudent winks, you 
understand; but a real friendly Come-along- 
home of a wink, such as you might give yourself. 
It was the very first joke I ever saw. So I be- 
gan climbing. And was initiated from that mo- 
ment. 

There flames from him a sudden ecstasy 
of white fire; 

[95] . 



Ah, that Golden One ! She shall never know 
those dark abysses ! For her, the gladness and 
the rapture only! The unending Fun among 
the dancing stars ! 

Wragg. Well, I wish you joy of her ! 

Dafty. It's mine, eternally! Why, her wings are 
sprouting forth already. Her eyes are daz- 
zling with the daylight of new heavens! She, 
out of all the young awakening world can see ! 
Lordy, I never met such vision, since first I 
started making spectacles ! 

Omnes. Spectacles! Did you make spectacles? 

Dafty. Telescopes, too ! And microscopes ! Mi- 
croscopes so powerful, they can peep Into the 
minutest heartbeat of a man! And telescopes 
to search the farthest heavens ! 
This Is vainglory ! I shall be damned for this. 
So long! 

He moves to the Scullery door. There, 
he turns, 

{Chuckling.) Oh, I forgot! That little youth, 
they're entertaining In the chapel ! Such a lark ! 

Trail. Wharabout him? Cough up your last joke 
and go ! 

[96] 



Dafty. He tried selling hymn-books to them! It's 
your Johnny ! 

And he vanishes rapidly. 

Trail. My Johnny, tossed to heaven ! Here ! I'll 
revive the little skunks for this 1 

He bolts through the Refectory door. 

Hodge. The poor-box I Chock full! And him 
about! 

Wragg. That infamy by the altar! 

Julia. My Algernon ! Among those ragamuffins ! 

They bolt also. Limp is left sitting in 
the fireplace^ silent^ brooding. 

After awhile Miss Bliss arises as from 
a dream, and moves slowly ^ feebly up 
the right. 

Bliss. How cold it is ! 

She picks up her shawl and puts it on, as 
when she first appeared. She goes to 
the lectern, turns over the leaves of 
the Bible, and tries to read. 

I cannot see. My eyes are dim with tears ! 
[97] 



She finds and fixes her spectacles. Then 
she reads; 

I looked on all the works that my hands had 
wrought^ and on the labour that I had laboured 
to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation 
of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. 

She gropes blindly for her cane; and 
then totters weakly to the high-backed 
bench. There she crumples up, a lit- 
tle bent thing, her hand trembling. 
She continues so for a mofuent. 
Then glancing across the fireplace, she 
becomes aware, in a dazed kind of 
way, that LiMP is there. 

Why, Job Limp, are you still here? 

// required, the Curtain may descend at 
this point. 



THE END OF THE THIRD ACT 



[98] 



THE FOURTH ACT 

The Scene and the Situation re7nain unchanged. 
Limp still occupies the faldstool: Miss Bliss, the high- 
backed bench. Her hair is brown: in her eyes, there 
is a growing alertness. At present, however, she still 
sits crumpled, shawled and spectacled, fumbling at her 
cane. 

Limp. Yes, I'm here. Romping with ritualistic In- 
fants offers no allurement to a hobnailed liver. 
There's nothing for it but endurance and dam- 
nation. 

Bliss {thoughtfully) . Yes, we must abandon all hope. 
Even Dante said that. 

Limp. It's not as if there's anything one can do! 

Bliss. I wonder ! Of course, if what Dafty said . . . 

Limp {disgustedly). Dafty! 

And Miss Bliss sinks deeper into her 
own meditations. 
[99] 



Bliss. I suppose, I shall occupy eternity, seeking out 
all the little damned babies, and trying to cool 
the tips of their darling tongues. They will be 
doubly orphaned now! . . . 

Anyhow, He can't stop me loving them ! 

She considers this, steadily. Then a 
new thought dawns upon her; 

Job, have you ever yielded to the dreadful temp- 
tation of doubt? 

Limp. It's my entire philosophy. The moment I'm 
shewn anything, I doubt it. That and this in- 
fernal torment go together. 

Bliss. I have wicked promptings, too. 

Limp. He talks about hell! — I'm there already! 
And it keeps on increasing! Everlastingly! 
It's for all the world like quicklime in your 
back! 

Bliss. Yes, a searching fire! Only mine's in my 
heart. 

Limp. Oh, Lord, another of them! I suppose he^ll 
come bellowing his ailments next ! 

Bliss. Who? 

[lOO] 



Limp. That gospel-monger ! 

Bliss {shocked). Job! If He should hear you! 

Limp. I'm not afraid of his pitch and brimstone ! 

Bliss {fearfully). Isn't doubt appalling? It puts 
such frightful thoughts in one's head. It al- 
most makes one rebellious against Divinity Him- 
self! . . . 

And she begins probing another abyss; 

Job, do you think, perhaps, Satan may have been 
a little maligned? Poor thing, he may be 
kinder than we have been taught to believe. 
Less brutal, more — cultivated. 

Limp. He'd be an improvement anyway, on this fel- 
low's scarecrow of a god! He couldn't be 
worse ! 

Bliss. What awful things you dare to say! I was 
thinking that, also. 

Limp. Then why on earth don't you say it? 

Bliss. Oh, I couldn't ! I wouldn't dare ! Not yet. 

Limp. Yes, it's people that daren't, people that are 
afraid of hell, who keep this mountebank's the- 
ology alive ! 

[lOl] 



Bliss. But I wouldn't quite know how. 

Limp. It's perfectly simple ! You only have to open 
your mouth, emit a few forcible words, and send 
shivering to oblivion an obviously mendacious 
god. 

Bliss. Do you mean that His God . . . 

Limp. I mean that his god Is a lie ! Whatever gods 
there may or may not be, his is an imposture. 

Bliss. But God must be true I Why, I have known 
Him! Oh, Job! . . . 

She rises, a curious gleam awakening in 
her eyes. 

Limp. What is it now? 

Bliss. I hardly know! All sorts of queer texts! In 
my mind ! . . . 

That one about Satan coming as an angel of 
light! The lying spirits, sent to deceive! 
That fearful one, foretelling false Christs and 
false prophets, to seduce, if possible, even the 
elect! 

Limp. Now, you are going beyond me. 

[102] 



Bliss. If only I dared to believe It ! If only I dared ! 
Oh, it makes me hot to think of it ! 

She removes her shawl. Limp clutches 
his back in agony. 

Limp. I'm burning, too ! It's fire unquenchable ! 

Bliss {anxiously). Oh! . . . 

She sinks hack timidly, her resolution 
wavering. She then bends forward 
with the confidential air of a conspira- 
tor. 

Didn't you think His trumpet sounded a trifle 
coarse? 

Limp. Trumpet? . . . 

Bliss. Yes, and then those horrid little books ! And 
that hymn ! One expected surprises; but some- 
how . . . The Magnificat was so much more 
— mannerly. 

Limp. It was his clownish attempts at humour got me ! 

Bliss. Just what I say! Of course. Saint Francis 
was a funny man. So was Brother Juniper. 
But It wasn't all about football. They had 
quite a number of ideas in the dark ages. 
[103] 



Didn't you Imagine too, that He would be more 
of a — well, it isn't exactly a nice word nowa- 
days — but more of a gentleman? 

Limp. What! ... 

Bliss. In the old-fashioned sense, I mean: the sense 
of chivalry. When there were gentlefolk. 

Limp. Well, aren't some of us that now? 

Bliss. Oh, yes, in a way. But I mean — really. In 
the thirteenth century way, for instance. When 
we were gentle; and of the folk. I remember 
Dafty once telling me that the last grace of a 
woman was to be a good gentleman. I took it 
for a joke at first: I'm afraid I'm rather slow. 
But after I had meditated a few days, I found a 
great truth in that remark. Woman's honour 
is not enough. I have striven to be a good 
gentleman, ever since. 

Limp {growling) . Yes, Dafty would say a thing like 
that! 

Bliss. Wouldn't he? Sometimes, he reminds me of 
Saint Francis. He's so comical. 

Limp. Lot he knows about gentlemen! 

Bliss. Oh, but indeed, he does! You mustn't sup- 

[104] 



pose, because he's sometimes solemn, that he's 
modern. He's really perfectly out of date. 

Limp. Well, so am I. But you don't find me crack- 
ing jokes. And I live entirely in the past. 

Bliss But shouldn't we make the past live in us? 

Limp. Whatever are you driving at? 

Bliss. Just that, Job. We should make the past 
alive. That's one way of reanimating the dead 
and dying present — the gentleman's way. 
Then, there is that better way, the workman's 
— bringing the future to birth, today. And 
best of all, the saint's ! — To dwell unceasingly 
in life eternal. 

Limp. Well, I don't understand saints. And I'm not 
interested in workmen. 

Bliss. The thirteenth century gentleman was. He 
helped them to Magna Charta. 

Limp. Yes, and look at their gratitude ! They have 
brought our class to beggary ! 

Bliss. Messer Bernard didn't mind. He beggared 
himself, embracing holy poverty. 

Limp. A gentleman must have house and food and 
raiment. 

[105] 



Bliss. Saint Francis went In tatters, feasted on bread 
and water, and housed himself in wattles. 

Limp. What about our young girls, our delicately- 
nurtured women, ladies? . . . 

Bliss. The Holy Lady Clare was a young girl, deli- 
cately-nurtured. 

Limp. Hang it all, Fm no modern! — But we must 
allow some difference between ourselves and 
the thirteenth century. 

Bliss. That's what I'm saying. There Is a differ- 
ence. A difference of ideal. I wonder why it 
should be just that one. 

Limp. You think it is because they had a different 
gentleman? 

Bliss. I think It is because they had a different God. 

Limp. Look here! What's coming over you? 

Bliss. I don't know. Something curious has been 
happening to me ever since I began — question- 
ing, just now. My mind seems to be awaken- 
ing. It is as clear as it was when I was a woman 
of thirty-five. I am beginning to see again. 
Yes, I see quite . . . 

What am I doing with these things on? 
[io6] 



And she takes of her spectacles. She 
then looks at him keenly. 

Why, bless me! How old are you, Job? 

Limp. Forty-five! And feel like Methuselah! 

Bliss {thoughtfully) . Yes, those extra ten years tell, 
don't they? 

Limp. It Isn't the years! It's liver! And it grows 
worse, when I don't get exercise ! Ugh ! 

He rises y pressing his hack, and begins 
doddering away. 

Bliss. Poor Job ! . . . 

Here, take my cane. Let me help you. 

She jumps up briskly and trips towards 
him. 

Limp. I'm not an octogenarian! Nonsense! . . . 

Well! Such . . . 

Treating a man of forty-five, as though he 
were . . . 

He takes the cane, refusing her arm, 
with a grunt. He then crawls pain- 
[107] 



fully to the eastern zvhtdow. MiSS 
Bliss watches him from the middle 
of the Hall. 

What a disgusting day! Nothing but clouds! 

I'd feel better if there were a speck of sky in 
the universe ! But I doubt it ! 

Bliss. Try doubting the clouds, Job. 

Limp. Don't try that metaphysical piffle on me. I'm 
too old. 

Hodge enters from the Refectory. He 
appears woe-hegone, his face puffy 
and puckered; and moves with the 
heavy lassitude of a fat man inwardly 
flustered. 

Hodge. Oh, my heart! Ready to burst! I'm age- 
ing fast! 

Limp makes a noise like a snarling dog. 

All very well, saying Wow! I'd swop my heart 
for your liver, any day! That last lap round 
the cloisters has added twenty years to my life. 
Little tripehounds ! 

Bliss. Why, what's the trouble, Timothy? 

[io8] 



Hodge. Trouble ! Your blighted orphans are the 
trouble ! Especially that yellow hussy with the 
pink legs! Pack of unregenerate heathens, 
that's what they are ! 

Bliss. Come, Timothy, I can't have my children 
calumniated. They are baptized members of 
the Holy Catholic Church. 

Hodge. Yes, that's the mischief! Baptizing babies 
in long clothes, before they have the sense to 
know their own carnal minds. Not a seven- 
year-old in my Sunday School don't know better 
than that! 
Lord! ... 

He tumbles into the chair ^ panting. 

Limp {testily). You've evidently something to say. 
Stop blowing, and say It! 

Hodge. You nurse your liver! My complaint's the 
star turn now ! 

You haven't a drop of anything handy, have 
you? 

Bliss. Why, certainly. 

She dances to the table. He moistens 
his mouth expectantly. 
[109] 



Hodge. If it hadn't a-been for that darned football 
I'd never have been caught. They was all in- 
side the chapel, hullabalooing with Tommy. 
Then that old resurrected corpse must needs 
come jigging out for the football; and he sicked 
the kids on me. 

Miss Bliss has accomplished her errand 
of mercy. She offers him a glass. 

Bliss. There ! That will refresh you ! 

Licking his lips, he lingers fondly before 
tasting. 

Hodge. I wouldn't a-minded, if that yellow one — 
with her blamed spiky elbows . . . 
What is it? 

Bliss. Water. 

Hodge. One thing on top of another! Here! . . . 

He hands it hack again. 

Ain't you got nothing interesting In the house? 
Something really — wet ? 

Bliss. Surely ! Cocoa ! 

Inspired by that bright idea, she begins 
hastening away. 
[no] 



Hodge. Cocoa! . . . 

Stop! It's no use! I'd rather die. We all 
got to go some day. 

Limp. Ugh I 

Hodge. Yes, you too ! Old groggy liver 1 

Miss Bliss returns the glass to the table. 

Limp. What I'd like to know is, what were you doing 
in the chapel porch, alone ? 

Hodge. That's my business. 

Limp. Yes, I know it's your business I But how much 
did you make on the deal? 

Hodge. If you think the price of a few hymn-books 
can pay me for that rat-hunt round them 
cloisters, you're dead off it ! Lanky little line- 
prop ! 

Limp. Cracksman ! Picking padlocks ! 

Hodge. You didn't have to, see ! The boxes In this 
place have mouths like . . . 

It's comfort I want ! Water ain't no comfort, 
and nothing in it. 

[Ill] . 



He works his features like a desirous 
babe. Miss Bliss, who has been 
studying him closely, now comes down 
to him. 

Bliss. Timothy, what have you been doing with the 
poor-box? 

Hodge. Didn't say I'd done nothing, did I? 

Bliss. Precisely ! That's why I ask. 

Hodge. What are you nagging me for? Don't you 
know I'm a dying man? 

Bliss. Wouldn't you wish to make restitution before 
you go? 

Hodge. What's wrong with you? This ain't your 
character. I don't kind of recognize you, when 
you get suspicious. What's happening to the 
world? 

Bliss. I think perhaps I am becoming saved, Timothy. 
There are certain Christian graces I have neg- 
lected. The wisdom of the serpent. Doubt, 
enquiry, investigation. I am even hoping to 
see jokes shortly. 

Come, Timothy, give it to me. 

[112] 



Hodge. YouM better ask that dancing skin and bones, 
you call your Golden One ! What more right 
has she to it, than me? She got it all! Some 
of my own, too! 

Bliss. Ah! Then it is safe, in her hands. 

Hodge. Why more than in mine! Thievery, I call 
it! 

Bliss. There are honest thieves and dishonest ones, 
Timothy. 

Hodge. Never could understand what you saw in that 
child, anyway! One of these days you'll be 
finding her out, and wishing you'd picked some- 
body more — ordinary. Mind, I'm telling you 
as your friend. 

Bliss. Those pennies belong to God's poor, Timothy. 

Hodge. There you go again! / ain't got them! 
That little baggage stripped me of my utter- 
most farthing! This comes of going about 
half-naked, and Roman Catholic practices ! 

Bliss. God's poor, Timothy! 

Hodge. Well, the poor don't always get what's com- 
ing to them! They can't expect it! Not in 
an age of enlightenment and free competition. 
[113] 



Bliss. Some of them are starving, Timothy. 

Hodge. You don't know nothing about it. This 
ain't a question for school-ma'ams ! It's a ques- 
tion for hard-headed men of business ! You go 
back to your thirteenth century, and entertain 
yourself. 

Bliss. Yes, we'd have to go back quite some way for 
entertainment. 

Hodge. Ain't we entertaining? 

Bliss. I suppose we are. In a grim kind of fashion. 

Hodge. Well, if we ain't funny, we have our com- 
pensations! 

Bliss. Such as ... ? 

Hodge, Such as ! What about our monster factories, 
our skyscrapers? 

Bliss. What about the mediaeval gilds, the great 
cathedrals? 

Hodge. Consider our educational institutions ! 

Bliss. Consider theirs! 

Hodge. What did they produce? A pack of 
monks ! Look at our thinkers, scientists, states- 
[114] 



men, captains of industry ! I could holler a few 
names now, in this very place; and they'd jump 
up like Jack-in-the-boxes ! 

Bliss. Look at Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, King 
Louis the Saint of France, the nameless masters 
of the Crafts! 

Hodge. I don't know the parties, but they simply 
weren't in it with us ! Look at the things we 
done ! Locomotives, electric light, ocean 
liners, aeroplanes ! — not to mention subma- 
rines! Do you happen to know how many 
bushels of wheat the United States alone ex- 
port annually? How many gallons of oil? 
Tons of silver, pig-iron? I don't myself; but 
it's something cruel ! Don't that indicate effi- 
ciency? Ain't we the right to call ourselves the 
most astounding century in all history? I tell 
you now, as I told my young Baptists many a 
time: we're the human limit! And we deserve 
every penny ! 

Buss. Not at the expense of God's poor, Timothy. 

Hodge. I'm talking business, I tell you! The poor 
got nothing whatever to do with it ! 

Bliss. They had in the thirteenth century. 

Hodge. The thirteenth century is dead. 

[115] 



Bliss. Then may it rise again, and scourge us for 



our sins ! 



The wild shrieking of a woman is heard 
outside. 

Limp. What in the name of . . . Are we suddenly 
going to resolve ourselves into a Greek tragedy? 

Bliss. Yes, It's exactly like the prelude to a kommos. 

The cries now mingle zvith the groaning 
of a man, followed by ^^ Damn, damn^ 
damn! '* 

That doesn't sound like Sophocles ! 

Hodge. Sounds like Pomeroy and Julia to me. She'll 
pass on some day, with them hysterics ! 

The lamentations continue, and come 
nearer. 

Limp. This suspense is getting on my nerves ! 

Wragg and Julia make parodos from 
the Refectory, wailing threno die ally. 
They create a small orchestra out of 
the middle of the Hall, circling it with 
anguished pantomime ; and then 
stand tragically opposite each other. 
[ii6] 



Hodge edges away to the left: MiSS 
Bliss to the right, 

Julia. Algernon's safe: he overslept himself: he 
lives! But I am perishing! 

Wragg. I am but a bag of bones ! One stark decrep- 
itude ! 

Julia. I have put on thirty years in thirty minutes ! 
A year a minute ! 

Wragg. I've put on fifty: Tommy, hundreds! He's 
an ancient monument ! A cairn ! A pyramid ! 

Julia. The horrors I have witnessed! I have wit- 
nessed sacrilege! Hymn-books, bibles, a man 
of God and footballs, all jumbled up together! 

Wragg. I have seen flags desecrated! 

Julia. I have beheld iniquity ! I have looked upon 
dreams of the night ! 

Wragg. If they had only shewn discrimination; but 
they would not! 

Julia. We many times attempted extrication ; but we 
could not! 

Wragg. That last race round ! 

[in] 



Julia. The ignominy of it! 

Wragg. The pickaback ! 

Julia. The jump-frog! 

Wragg. That leaping wild-cat with the bony knees ! 

Julia. My rumpled raiment ! My dishevelled hair ! 
and as for him! . . . 

Wragg. Yes, as for him! . . . 

Bliss. Why, what's the matter with him? 

They both wheel to the right ^ simultane- 
ously. 

Both. Matter! ... 

Julia. They're playing football with him in the 
chapel ! 

Hodge. Didn't he scatter them? 

They both wheel to the left. 

Both. Scatter! . . . 

Wragg. You should have seen that last great scrim- 
mage at the altar ! 

[ii8] 



Julia. They got him down! They pummelled him 
all over! 

Wragg. They whacked him with the ball, and made 

him yell ! 

Julia. He threatened them with death : he mentioned 
hell! 

Wragg. But that's not all! They found another 
game ! 

Bliss. What did they call It? 

They wheel to the right as before. 

Both. Horse and wagon! . . . 

Wragg. He was the horse, and they hung on behind. 

Julia. They danced, .bare-legged! And then that 
shocking show ! 

Hodge. What shocking show might that be? 

They wheel to the left. 

Both. Saint and Dragon ! . . . 

Julia. That little yellow horror yoked him to her 
girdle, and made him tamely crawl! 
[119] 



Bliss. Ah! Saint Margaret! Saint Margaret! 

Julia. Another painted him in red and blue and gold ! 

Bliss. Saint Gertrude ! 

Wragg. He romps and roars ! 

Julia. He grinds his teeth! He has torn candles 
from the altars, and trampled on them! 

Wragg. He foams, he wallows ! He wraps him- 
self in flags ! 

Julia. And worse than that ! Far worse ! 

Bliss {breathlessly). What? What? . . . 

Julia. TheyVe stuck a tail upon him, dipped him in 
the font, and named him Father Devil ! 

Bliss. Oh, glorious Gothic Centuries! Risen from 
the grave at last! 

Wragg. What! You condone it! 

Julia. You advocate profanity! 

Hodge. You've done it! I knew you'd go too far! 
This comes of Orphanages instead of Lucifer! 

Julia. You — nun! You childless infidel! Do you 
dare . . . 

[120] 



Wragg. Have you the naked impudence to main- 
tain . . . 

There are heard howls of childish de- 
risioUy rapidly increasing in volume. 
They listen silently. Then LiMP 
goes to the eastern window. 

Limp. My God ! . . . 

Hodge. What is it? Good Lord! . . . 

He has joined him at the window. 

Limp. Look ! And the hailstones rattling down like 
ostrich eggs! 

There is a rumbling of thunder and the 
clatter of hail^ the laughter pealing 
through it like a clash of chimes. 

Bliss. Oh, my army! My little army! The army 
with banners! I faltered, I fell by the way- 
side! But they, my babies, my beloved, they 
have kept the faith ! 

Julia {apprehensively) . Is he coming? 

Limp {grimly). Like an apocalyptic beast! 

Julia goes completely of her head. 

[121] 



Julia. He Is coming! He Is coming! He will tear 
us all to pieces! Quick! Pomeroy! Turn on 
the machine ! It may soothe the evil spirit in 
him, as Thingumabob soothed What-do-you- 
call-him ! 

Wragg, with what celerity he may, 
limps to obey, 

Julia. Look to yourself now, Mary Bliss ! This is 
the end of everything! He will come like a 
ravening dragon ! 

Bliss {crossing herself calmly). In the Name of the 
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, 
I will. 

And the Hymn of the Beast blares forth. 

Trail rages in from the Refectory. 
His football suit is all disordered, but 
the stripes shew well. His face is 
painted red and blue and gold, faith- 
fully portraying the devil as imagined 
— and buffooned — under the pa- 
tronage of Mother Church in the 
mystery plays of the unenlightened 
ages. He is furnished with a tail. 
He has lost his voice; and can only 
express himself that way, in hoarse 
and almost inarticulate gibberings. 

[122] 



He is not at a loss, however. His 
pantomime, which is plentiful, and 
dithyrambic, reveals his meaning. 
And the hymn helps *' some J' 

They make wide room for him, as he 
staggers to. the middle of the Hall. 

Trail. I've lost my voice! I'm done! I'm a 
dead-beat! I'm a stiff! Wow! Dough- 
nuts ! . . . 

He performs a tortured cake-walk, mak- 
ing tracks for HoDGE. That worthy 
flies. 

Hodge. Don't you come near me ! I'll pay up ! 
Oh! 

He gambols '^\JlAA-wards, grimacing 
horribly. 

Julia. Oh! Save me, somebody! I'm a mother! 

She scuttles, screaming, behind Miss 
Bliss. Trail veers for Pomeroy. 

Wragg. Don't maul me! I'm Pomeroy Wragg! 
Oh! 

Trail dodges him round the chair. 
This shews of his tail to fine ad- 

[123] 



vantage. Also, the legend on his 
back: Mister Trale Has a Tale. 

Hodge. Well, that's funny! 

His laughter rouses the dragon in his 
wrath. 

Trail. Funny! Here, where's my brimstone? 
Wow! Curitout! Laugh, you brlc-a-bracs ! 
Keep sunny, will you ! Smile ! Smile ! Smile 1 
The devil will get you! Hell! Hell! Hell! 
Mothuhr! Fathuhr! Terruhr! Wow! Stop 
that blasted wheezing-machine ! 

He has been dancing like a dervish all 
the while, chasing first one, then an- 
other of them around the Hall. 
Now, foaming and impotent, he falls 
to the ground, gnawing at the chair 
like an inspired revivalist. The 
talking machine ceases. 

Bliss. Oh! Oh! Oh! . . . 

And she goes of into hymns of youthful 
laughter. 

Trail {grovelling) . What the earthly tabernacle are 
you sunny over? 

[124] 



Bliss. A Thing immortal, indestructible, eternal in 
the heavens ! A Thing not builded by earthly 
hands! A Thing against which the gates of 
hell shall not prevail! Oh! I am becoming 
initiate ! I see the joke ! 

Julia. He will destroy us! Are you mad? 

Bliss. Beyond recovery! Oh, Illustrious and Sub- 
lime Grand Master, receive me now! 

Trail. Cackling won't get you there ! Berlieve, you 
mutt! 

Bliss. I will, unfalteringly! I will clothe myself in 
readiness! Worthy or unworthy now, I will 
apparel me, as a witness! Not in my own 
righteousness ! His ! His ! 

Julia. Mary Bliss ! Think of the Day of Judgment. 

Bliss. I do, undoubtingly ! Oh, I have been faith- 
less! I have betrayed my Master! I have 
hearkened to the voice of Anti-Christ, and the 
hosts of hell! My Lord, I come! I come! 
I come! . . . 

And, like one of her own girls, she 
hounds up the stairway, two steps at 
at a time, light as a feather, and van- 
ishes. 

[125] 



They stand looking after her in con- 
sternation. The thunder rumbles. 
Trail lies prone on the floor, blas- 
phemous, biting the dust. He has 
been brought to Jesus at last. It is 
perhaps the beginning of his salva- 
tion. Salvation **as by fire.'* So be 
it. In the Name of Christ, Amen. 

If required, the Curtain may descend at 
this point. 



THE END OF THE FOURTH ACT 



[126] 



THE FIFTH ACT 

The Scene and the Situation remain unchanged, 
Julia and Wragg are on the right: Limp and Hodge, 
left. Trail still cherishes the floor. Stiff, motionless, 
they face the stairway : then all begin babbling together. 



Limp. f What's the matter with the woman? Has 
she gone clean, stark, raving, ecstatically 
mad? 

Julia. She's gone upstairs to do something des- 

perate! They can't blame me! I'm abso- 
lutely innocent ! 

Hodge. -! She's an anarchist! She's capable of 
bombs! She's capable of burning bunting! 

Wragg. She'll take a dose of strychnine ! I could 
see it in her eye ! This comes of fool in- 
vestments ! 

Trail. Lynch the petrified Babylonian ! She's the 

you-know-what from Revelations! 

They cease suddenly. There is a pause. 
Then Trail rasps hoarsely. 

Don't let her geraway with it! Rat her out! 
[127] 



Limp. 1 That's right ! We must stop her ! 

Julia. We'll put her in a padded cell! 

Wragg I If it's nitro-glycerine . . . 

Hodge. She'll be rattling by the time we . . . 

Trail. Biff! Gee! Whiz! Rah-rah-rah! 

And in football formation, led by 
Trail, they rush for the stairway. 
They halt abruptly; for there, 
heralded by crackling thunder and in 
a glare of lightning, appears Dafty, 
guarding the way. 

He is marvellously changed. Clad in 
school-made kilt and corselet, bare- 
toed with greaves, ridge-capped and 
mantled; he bears a ludicrous re- 
semblance to a Giovanni Pisano arch- 
angel. He holds himself erect, his 
young-old face gleaming with ironic 
glee. In his hand, uplifted, is a toy 
sword. 

Dafty. Back, back, blasphemers! 

Omnes. Why! It's only Dafty! 

Hodge. In them pageant togs, I told you of. 

[128] 



Reassured, they rally, and make another 
dash. There is more thunder. 

Dafty. Stand back, or else this flaming sword . . . 

They obey unconsciously. He con- 
tinues, mysteriously. 

It Is of wood ! It's name Is Makebelleve ! It 
can work miracles ! I forged It for the Golden 
Child, last June ! Her mark's upon It! 

Magnetized, though they donU know 
why, they edge away. All hut LiMP. 

Limp. This pontifical mummery may Impress priest- 
ridden brats! I'm not one. 

Dafty. Then for you, I bear another charm! 
Limp. I doubt It ! 

Dafty. It will set you smarting, when it once begins. 
Limp. Fiddlesticks! . . . 

But he hobbles to a safe distance. 

What brings you back, I'd like to know? I 
thought you'd done ! 

Dafty. I was sent! 

[129] 



Limp. What muddle-headed jester wished you on us 
again? 

Dafty. One, you doubt. 

Julia. Tell us the plain, unvarnished, utterly paltry 
truth! Where did you come from? 

Dafty. The lower heavens. I've been climbing. 

Hodge. Well, I think if I'd climbed that far, I'd 
a-gone a mile further ! 

Dafty. Even you couldn't! Something is in the 
way! Descending! And it's coming nearer, 
every moment! 

Hodge. What? . . . 

Limp. Hailstones, you ass! 

Dafty. Armageddon. 

Hodge. That means the war, don't it? 

Dafty. The final one. 

Wragg. That's a dream! There'll be war as long 
as there's a flag left on earth. 

Dafty. That is true ! 

[130] 



Wragg. Very well then ! Let's prepare! 

Dafty. To the uttermost farthing! Now that 
there's this new army entering the field. 

Wragg. Do you mean the United States? 

Dafty. I mean this new army, descending now, out 
of the skies. 

Wragg. Some vast aeroplane scheme, eh? What! 
Today's news? 

Dafty. Yesterday's. It's so old people don't be- 
lieve it. 

Wragg. What flag? 

Dafty. No flag. It is an army, fair as the moon, 
clear as the sun, with symbols more terrible. 

Wragg (hotly) . What symbols? 

Dafty. Banners. 

Hodge. I don't see no difference. 

Dafty. You will, when the danger's over. In the 
Millennium. 

Wragg (excitedly). Now, keep to your story! No 
Utopian babblings! 

[131] 



Dafty. Well, that's the story, If you could only grasp 
it. I hold a secret commission under that army. 
I simply have to babble. I'm a spy. 

Omnes. Spy! ... 

Limp has been listening intently. He 
now advances, and says ironically. 

Limp. Let's get a little clear light on this, my man. 
Something uncompromising and in the open. 
This flagless army you crack up so valiantly! 
Which of the Powers does it represent? 

Wragg. You've got him. Job! Which of the 
Powers? 

Dafty. The Powers Supernal. 

Hodge. Never heard of them. 

Wragg. I have. They are on our side. 

Limp. Shut up ! . . . 

He again addresses Dafty. 

I perceive you are a faithful spy — diplomat, 
even! — You conceal your secrets by a jest. 
Did you find any more little jokes up there? 

Dafty. Five little ones. One screamer. 

[132] 



Limp. And — the screamer? 

Dafty {bowing). The obligations of my Order will 
not yet permit me to announce it. 

Limp {suavely). Might we trouble you to regale us 
with the five? 

Dafty {more so). It will afford me infinite pleasure. 
In those dizzy altitudes I found the evil liver 
discomfitted and brought to naught. The 
gross heart given over to its own fatness. Envy 
and malice turned to suicidal dreams and foul 
inventions. Nations weighed in the balance 
and found wanting. Lastly, I found Darkness 
professing itself the Light; and the Light suf- 
fering it to be so for a season. 
Do we get it over ? 

Trail creeps to the fireplace on all 
fours, and crouches there, chewing his 
tail, contemplatively. 

Ah! . . . 

Trail {under his breath). Weasel-eye! 

Hodge. Here, let me come! Wait a moment! . . . 
He winks violently at everybody, im- 
plying that he has a poser. 

How did you manage that climb? 
[133] 



Dafty. Don't wink so clamorously, Mr. Timothy. 
YouVe scared away the thunder. 

Hodge. Eh? . . . 

He gapes about him in meteorological 
amaze. 

Trail {as before). That isn't funny! 

Dafty. As for that story you desire so eagerly, it 
has a double meaning. I fear, as a tired busi- 
ness man, you . . . 

The sound of distant music arrests his 
attention. 

Ah ! — The Chopin Funeral March ! I had 
that played over me, you know, when / . . . 
Pity, it's a bit too late ! 

Wragg. It's eleven! That was the time. They'll 
be passing here in ten minutes. 

Dafty. Ten will do me nicely. 

Something in his emphasis rivets them. 
The music melts away. There is 
heard only the far-off beating of the 
muffled drums. 

Beautiful! . . . 

[134] 



Limp. Never mind that Infernal Memorial Service! 
Get on with your allegory ! 

Dafty (airily). Ah, yes, my late ascension! 

Hodge. Now for a whopper! 

Dafty. Whopper's the word, Mr. Timothy! I was 
never so thunderstruck In my life ! 

I don't know, lucrative sir, how far your studies 
may have led you into the Science of Optics. 
But the marvellous discovery I have just made 
in that realm of light up yonder . . . 

Hodge. Hold on, now ! Power and Light's my busi- 
ness, I'd have you know. Lucifer . . . 

Dafty. Ah, then you'll appreciate! My dear sir, 
you're bankrupt! Lucifer's bankrupt! That 
gigantic enterprise aloft there is about to revo- 
lutionize all earthly business! 

Hodge. Impossible ! 

Dafty. Supremely ! — Simply cannot fall ! I di- 
vined that, the moment I cleft the clouds. 

Hodge. Yes, but how did you get there? That's 
what I want to know! 

[135] 



Dafty. There's the point ! — The Light ! I con- 
nected with the very first gleam, and was trans- 
mitted in a twinkle. 

Hodge. Course, I know Science can do very queer 
things. Why, in my own trade — you wouldn't 
believe ! But there it is ! 

Dafty (urbanely). The pragmatic proof, Mr. Tim- 
othy! 

Hodge. Just what I always tell them! What I say 
is, with Science all things is possible. But 
some of these young fellows think they know 
everything! . . . 

Course, if this discovery of yours has any sub- 
stantial . . . 

Dafty. My dear sir, it's Substance Itself! 

Hodge (quickly). I'll take an option on the first . . . 

Dafty fixes a demonic gaze upon him. 

Dafty. Gently, Mr. Timothy! The first shall be 
last, you know ! 

Hodge. Come now, we know all about that! — 
What's your game? Well? Spit it out! 

Dafty. I admit a difficulty. The necessary limita- 
tions of human spittle . . . Then, too, the 
[136] 



abstruse optics of it — metaphysics, even . . . 
You see, it isn't, as I at first conjectured, merely 
that One Eye! There are the others! Mil- 
lions, quadrillions ! The universe is swarming 
with them ! 

Hodge (bewildered). Millions of eyes? 

Dafty. Infinitudes! Peeping, spying, everywhere 
— eternally. We have dreamed ourselves un- 
seen, hidden away, buried in the darkness of 
unfathomable graves ! And all around us, that 
world of deathless light! Eyes! They are 
about us now! Their glances are a fusilade of 
gimlets ! 

Julia. Eyes! You're mad! You lie! 

Dafty. Precisely my words. Ma'am! Nicholas, I 
said, you're a liar, and the father of liars! 
But we're wrong! Blasphemously, devilishly 
wrong. If there were to be any more time, 
I'd prove it! But there are only seven short 
minutes! . . . 

She gasps, hut he continues relentlessly. 

We can't escape them, those formidable eyes! 
They crowd, they thicken upon us! Every 
moment! You can't escape them! You par- 
[137] 



ticularly can't! They are probing, pricking, 
piercing, stabbing to your very vitals ! 

Julia. Oh ! Horrible ! 

Dafty. Oh, I don't know! Nice little eyes! And 
when one's motives are so blameless ! . . . 

Hodge (dubiously) . What kind of things are they? 

Dafty. Inquisitive kind, Mr. Timothy. They 
search the deepest part of you! They search 
the very pockets! You might call them petty 
pilferers! Or again, policemen! Or even — 
angels ! And microscopically small. 

Hodge. Well, your ideas remind me . . . 

Dafty. Exactly! Out of the garnered treasures of 
your Baptist learning, you would recall that 
ancient gibe against the sacred teachings of 
Aquinas! Well, they can/ Myriads of them 
can perch upon the point of a very small pin! 

Hodge. Angels on a pin! 

Dafty. Listen! TU demonstrate it, in precisely — 
six minutes time ! Come, one last flutter before 
the aeons! How much will you bet? 

Hodge. Bet! Tm a deacon! 

[138] 



Dafty. Now, Mr. Timothy, be a sport! 

Hodge. No, I'll be damned first! 

Dafty. That will be too late ! By then . . . 

Wragg. Look here ! Keep to the point ! First, it's 
armies in the clouds: then, optics! You de- 
liberately sweep aside . . . 

Dafty. Sweep aside! It's identically the same 
story ! 

Wragg. Same story! What in the name of logic 
have optics to do with . . . 

Dafty. You amazing mole! How do you imagine 
the hosts of darkness and damnation are being 
dispersed? By your sharpshooting? Or by 
Living Eyes? Eyes are part of the battle 
yonder! Is it possible I am obscure? . . . 

Come, let me amplify a little. There are yet 
— five minutes ! Those Eyes . . . 

Limp. Oh, damn your Eyes ! 

Dafty {like a serpent). Not mine exclusively, sir! 
They are at the service of the entire creation. 
Including if I mistake not — you! . . . 
[139] 



For Limp stands frozen^ pierced as it 
were by instant icicles. Dafty 
watches him a moment^ and then says 
slowly. 

They search everybody. 

The silence is broken only by the diS' 
stant pulsing of the drums. 

Don't they, Tommy? 

Trail. They can search me ! 

They do: like red hot needles. He 
squirms. 

Julia {passionately). How do I know it's true? 
How do I know you are not lying? 

Dafty. What ! Beginning to stab you, too ? 

She writhes beneath his gleaming eye. 

Hodge. Look here! I'll take that bet! 

Dafty {quickly). How much can you shew? 

Hodge. How much do you say? 

Dafty. How much have you got? 

[140] 



Hodge. I . . . 

He claps his hand to his pocket, and 
pauses abruptly. The drums have 
never ceased. 

Name yours I 

Dafty (slowly). Eternity. 

Hodge. What's your joke? 

Dafty. Four minutes ! 

Hodge (fiercely). Name your figure ! 

Dafty. You're a ready reckoner, Mr. Timothy. 
Multiply a myriad of angels by the number of 
pins you have saved; and divide everything 
you have stolen among the poor. 

Hodge. That's queer arithmetic ! 

He calculates it, grasping at his heart. 
The drums are still heating. 

Wragg (explosively) . What's the matter with flags, 
I'd like to know? 

Dafty. You, mainly, Pomeroy ! You and Timothy. 

Wragg. And what about you? 

[141] 



Dafty. I'm guarding them, if you only knew. 

Wragg {bitterly). I didn't start this. What of 
JuHa? 

Dafty. She's dying. 

Hodge {similarly). What of Job? 

Dafty. He's dead. 

Limp. Dead, am I? I'll shew you whether I . . . 

Dafty. Don't you know it? Or do you want more 
slaughter, to drive the lesson home? 

Limp. I . . . 

Dafty. Three minutes ! 
Limp. I . . . 

Dafty. It has been a long debate, Sir Gentleman, 
notably contested. If you will pardon the pun 
— the Eyes have it ! 

And like a skilled fencer^ in perfect 
form, he pinks him neatly in the 
brisket. 

Sleep now, little weapon. Work's over. 

He returns it gravely to its scabbard. 
I>42] 



Trail. Ha ! Makehdieve ! 

Dafty (esoterically). Ah, it has another name for 
the initiate! 

Trail. What? 

Dafty. M^kebelieve. 

Hodge. Sounds the same to me. 

Julia. After all, what is it? Just the weapon of a 
silly little child ! 

Dafty. And you, a mother ! That's all it has to be ! 
My Golden One knows that. 

Limp susurrates a last crumbling word. 

Limp. And Timothy! And Pomeroy! Are they 
dead, also? 

Dafty. We shall learn, shortly. When the Con- 
ference sits. 

Hodge and Wragg both whisper to- 
gether. 

Both. Which Conference? . . . 

Dafty does not answer. He is reckon- 
ing something. 
[143] 



Dafty. Two! . . . 

The Funeral March is heard a^ain, far 
of. But it is approaching nearer, 
every moment. 

How are you getting on, Tommy? 

Trail. Burning! . . . 

Dafty. The torments of the saints you slandered, 
Tommy ! 

Trail. Thirsty! . . . 

Dafty. The beer you libelled, Tommy! God's 
beautiful beer! 

Trail. Stiff! . . . 

Dafty. Your lecherous ideas on dancing. Tommy! 
Legs, you know! 

Trail. Ugliness! ... 

Dafty. Your repudiation of art, theatres: your 
ghastly hymns ! 

Trail. Sticky ! It's like molasses ! 

Dafty. Home, sweet Home! Mother! Close the 
shutters, Willie's dead! 
[144] 



Trail. Bitterness ! Black wrath curdling up out of 
the pit of my belly ! 

Dafty. That's your god, Tommy! Vomit him, 
brother ! And serve the Living Christ ! 

Trail {utterly surprised) . But I do ! I'm saved ! 

Dafty. Not yet, Tommy. You don't know it; but 
you're in hell. 

Trail {growling) . What do you know about hell ? 

Dafty. Why, Tommy, you savvy that! Don't I be- 
long? 

Hodge. One thing I've wanted to know for some 
time. Who are you? 

Dafty. An instrument. Optically speaking, the 
wrong end of the telescope. I'm that Other 
Side, you know : that Outer Darkness ! — Only, 
of course, it's all One, really. Do I make my- 
self — luciferous? 

Trail. That's no answer. What's your name? 
Your family connections? How do you pass 
your time ? 

Dafty. I'm the devil. Tommy. God's naughty 
brother. Passing from hell unto salvation. 
[145] 



Trail. Thirteenth century doctrine, I guess! 

Dafty. No, fourth, this time. And not a doctrine, 
Tommy ! A pious opinion of the Fathers that 
composed the Creed. Ah! . . . 



He is reckoning again, A long pause. 



One! 



He stands at attention, ceremonially 
placing his closed fist to his brow. 
Then he speaks with intense solem- 
nity. 

Brethren and fellow sinners! My Illustrious 
and Sublime Grand Master bids me announce 
His last and greatest joke. 

They gaze at him in deepest horror. 
Then they all gasp fearfully. 

Omnes. What? 

Dafty. The Kingdom of Heaven. 

They are all standing. The stillness 
of doom descends upon them. The 
Funeral March swells to a reverber- 
ant roar, as the procession passes by 
the Orphanage. The sound de- 
creases. 

[146] 



Miss Bliss appears below the Window 
of the Angel of the Resurrection. 
She is like a girl, glorious with im- 
mortal youth. Her eyes flame mir- 
acles of radiant joy; her dark hair 
streaming loosely from her, as though 
blown by some unearthly wind. She 
is clad in robes of the blessed resur- 
rection, and bears in her hand a small 
lamp burning. 

She descends half way down the stair- 
way. 

Bliss. Awake ! Awake ! Awake, ye dreaming 
dead I He Is come ! His chariots are thunder- 
ing at the gates ! The long dark night is pass- 
ing away! It is morning! He is making all 
things new! Ye dead, awake! Awake! . . . 

The music crashes into triumph, and 
wails away again. 

The kingdoms of this world and the glories of 
them are no more ! They are cast down, they 
are demolished, they are utterly overthrown ! 
And in the place that knew them, there is risen 
the Empire of the Lord our God! Gloria in 
excelsisf . . . 

The mourners shall no longer weep ! He shall 
[147] 



wipe away all tears ! Lo, the mighty hosts and 
the multitudes of them, numberless, with ban- 
ners streaming ! He is the resurrection and the 
life immortal! Gloria! Gloria! . . . 

The labourer shall no longer eat his bread in 
bitterness ! He shall toil for very sweetness 
of man's joy therein; and he shall gather where 
he sowed ; and none shall say him nay ! Beauty 
shall abound; and in the hearts of all men, 
deathless love! Gloria! Gloria! . . . 

The pomp and blasphemy of ruthless war is 
done away! It whirls to dust, it sobs into ob- 
livion like a shuddering wind! The swords 
are broken ! The plough-shares are at the 
beating! Gloria in excelsis Deo! And on 
earth — Peace ! . . . 

The music now comes rattling through 
the Hall like thunder. 

Crumble, ye sepulchres! Break through your 
prison-bars, ye living dead! Cleanse you of 
your sin ! Put away from you the accursed 
thing ! The Lord is at hand ! Arise and meet 
Him! Lazarus, I say! Lazarus, come forth! 

The music cracks suddenly, like a heart 
in mid-throbbing. From it there 
emerges one clear note of seraphic 

[148] 



sweetness, long continued. It grows 
in volume, 

A flood of sunshine pours in from the 
eastern window, bathing the Hall in 
light. Up in the Gothic arches, like 
winged cherubim, there are fluttering 
beams. The Window of the Angel 
of the Resurrection becomes a blaze 
of everlasting gold. 

In the Name of the Father and of the 
Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. 



THE END OF THE PLAY 



[149] 



